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A 



SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



FOR 



YOUNG PEOPLE 



^r- 



MISS E. S. K1RKLAND 

AUTHOR OF "A SHORT HISTORY OF FRANCE," "SIX LITTLE COOKS, 

" dora's housekeeping," "speech and manners," etc. 





CHICAGO 

A. C. McCLURG & COMPANY 

1891 



Copyright 
By A. C, McClurg and Co. 

A.D. 1891 



tt- 






THE LIBRARY! 
OF CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 

"■: ■ **■:: : ■ ' ■ r ■■ ■ - .".mi 



To My Classes in English History: 

You already know something of American 
history. For two hundred years it was closely 
connected with that of England, and it is but 
little more than a century since we began to 
have a history exclusively our own. England 
is our mother -country; her past belongs to us 
as much as it does to the English, and ought to 
be equally interesting to us and them. After 
reading what was done and thought by our ances- 
tors, you will understand all the better how the 
separation came about which made us an inde- 
pendent Nation. 



E. S. K. 



Chicago, October, 1891. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER. PAGE. 

I. — Ancient Britain and the Romans, - - 7 

II. — The Saxons and the Heptarchy, - 16 

III. — From Egbert to the Six Boy- Kings, - 25 

IV. — Six Boy -Kings to Norman Conquest, - 33 

V. — The Norman Conquest, .... 42 

VI. — Norman England. William II. Henry L, 50 

VII. — White Ship. Death of Henry. Stephen, 56 

VIII. — The First Plantagenet, ... 63 

IX. — Richard I. and the Third Crusade, - 73 

X. — John Lackland and the Magna Charta, 82 

XL — Henry III. Simon de Montfort. First 

House of Commons, 90 

XII. — Edward I., Conqueror of Wales, - 98 

XIII. — The War with Scotland, .... 106 

XIV. — Edward II. Bannockburn, - - - 113 

XV. — Edward III. The Hundred Years' War, 120 

XVI. — The Black Prince, - 129 

XVII. — Richard II. Wat Tyler. Bolingbroke, 137 

XVIII. — Henry IV. Shrewsbury. Henry V., - 147 

XIX. — Agincourt. Treaty of Troyes. Death 

of Henry V., 154 

XX. — Henry VI. War in France. Jack Cade, 162 

XXI. — The Wars of the Roses, - - - 170 

XXII. — Edward IV. Little Princes in the Tower, 178 

XXIII. — The Last Plantagenet. The First Tudor, 185 

XXIV. — The Sixteenth Century. Henry VIII. , 193 

XXV. — Henry the Tyrant; also "Defender of 

the Faith," 201 

XXVI. — Henry's Wives. English Bible. Edward VI. , 209 

XXVII. — Lady Jane Grey. Bloody Mary. Calais, 217 

XXVIII. — Elizabeth. Mary Queen of Scots, - - 225 

XXIX. — Plots. The Navigators. Mary Stuart, 233 

XXX. — The Armada. Ireland. Queen's Death, 240 



vi CONTENTS. 



XXXI. — Sixteenth Century Summary. James I., 249 

XXXII. — The Bloody Hand. Raleigh. Trans- 
lation' of the Bible, - - - 257 

XXXIII. — Charles I. The Long Parliament, - 264 

XXXIV. — Civil War. Marston Moor. Naseby, 273 
XXXV. — Pride's Purge. Execution of Charles I. 

Dunbar and Worcester, - - - 279 

XXXVI. — The Protectorate. The Restoration, 287 
XXXVII. — Charles II. Triple Alliance. Treaty 

of Dover, 295 

XXXVIII. — Plots. Habeas Corpus. Death of 

Charles, 302 

XXXIX. — James II. Sedgemoor. Seven Bishops. 

Flight of the King, - - - 310 

XL. — Revolution of 1688. William and Mary, 317 

XLI. — Glencoe. Death of Mary. Peace of 

Ryswick. Death of William III., - 323 

XLII. — Anne. Act of Settlement. War of 
the Spanish Succession. Union with 
Scotland. Death, - 330 

XLIII. — George I. Invasion of the Pretender. 

South -Sea Bubble. George II., - 337 

XLIV. — War with Spain. Austrian Succession. 

Young Pretender. Quebec, - - 345 

XLV. — Seven -Years' War. India. Death of 

George II. Stamp Act, - - - 353 

XLVI. — War with America. Peace of Ver- 
sailles. Warren Hastings, - - 361 

XLVII. — The French Revolution. Napoleon 

in Egypt. Ireland, - - - - 370 

XLVIII. — Union with Ireland. Trafalgar. Or- 
ders in Council. Peninsular War. 
War of 1812. Waterloo. St. Helena, 378 
XLIX. — Death of George III. George IV. 

Catholic Emancipation. William IV., 386 

L. — Parliamentary Reform. Abolition of 

Slavery. Victoria, .... 392 

LI. — Boundary Treaties. Corn -Laws Re- 
pealed. Crimean War, - - - 399 
LII. — Treaty of Berlin. Egypt. The 

Queen's Jubilee, 407 

List of Sovereigns, - 414 



A 

SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



FOR 



YOUNG PEOPLE. 




CHAPTER I. 

ANCIENT BRITAIN AND THE ROMANS. 

HE earliest name for the country now called 
England was Albion, which we find in the 
works of Greek writers more than three hun- 
dred years before Christ. When the Romans went there 
it bore the name of Britain, and as such it was known for 
many centuries. Then it gradually became Angle-land, 
•or England; and in modern times the inhabitants have 
given to the whole island, including England, Scotland, 
and Wales, the name of Great Britain. 

There are many stories told about the Britons, going 
back as far as eight or nine centuries before Christ; and 
although there is reason to think that these stories were 
invented by writers who lived long afterward, and that 
{we really know nothing about the old Britons, yet it is 
/well to know something of the fables. 

The first person to settle in Britain, we are told, was 
lone Brutus, (called "Brut" by the early story-tellers), who 

(7) 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



was a great-grandson of ^Eneas, a Trojan warrior and 
the hero of Virgil's ^neid. This Brutus is said to have 
conquered a race of giants who dwelt in the country, and 
to have built on the River Thames a city which he called 
"New Troy." 

Some hundreds of years after this we hear of a certain 
Prince Bladud, who, being afflicted with leprosy, was 
obliged to leave his father's palace and wander about the 
country. By a lucky accident he discovered near the 
River Avon some hot springs in which he bathed himself 
and was completely cured. In gratitude for this, he built 
a city around the magic waters, the modern successor 
whereof is known by the name of Bath. 

The son of this prince was the unhappy King Lear 
who lives for us in Shakspeare's pages. The old story 
makes Cordelia's husband, a French king, help poor Lear 
to his throne again, driving away the wicked sisters; but 
Shakspeare has altered it into one of the grandest of his 
tragedies, and the king and his lovely daughter both die 
as a consequence of the father's over-trustfulness. 

After several centuries there comes a king called Lud,. 
who improved the city of New Troy and built walls around 
it. It was then called after him Lud's Town, or what- 
ever answered to that name in Celtic, (the language of 
the Britons); the Romans called it Londinum, and it has 
now settled down into London. 

The son of this King Lud was named Caswallon, 
(Latin, Cassivelaunus), and as he was the king or chief 
reigning in Britain when it was invaded by the Romans, 
he belongs to the period of authentic history. So much 
for fable. 

The first people who visited the shores of Britain from 



ANCIENT BRITAIN AND THE ROMANS. 9 

southern countries were undoubtedly the Phoenicians and 
Carthaginians, who went to the south-western part of the 
island (now called Cornwall), to obtain a supply of tin. 
They made no settlements, nor did they leave any account 
of what they saw there, so we may pass on at once to the 
invasion by Julius Caesar, which took place 55 B.C. 

The Britons whom Caesar attacked were fierce and 
warlike savages, using javelins and arrows when they 
fought, as well as shields to defend themselves. They 
had, besides, a kind of blunt sword, which does not seem 
to have done much harm. They rode furiously to battle 
in chariots with sharp scythes sticking out on either side, 
managing their well-trained little horses with wonderful 
skill. In winter they dressed themselves in the skins of 
animals; in summer, when Csesar first saw them, they 
painted or tattooed their bodies with the blue juice of a 
plant called woad, which must have been somewhat like 
indigo. They had learned so much of civilized ways as 
to make rough, round houses of sticks and clay, with a 
hole at the top to let out the smoke; and those who lived 
near the sea-shore had little boats called coracles, made 
of basket-work covered with leather. 

The most interesting thing to us about the Britons is 
their religion. They were heathens, and their priests, 
who directed all their affairs, were called Druids. Among 
these Druids were the bards, or song-makers, who told 
in verse the stories of chiefs and heroes. These songs 
the people learned by heart and shouted them out be- 
fore they went to battle, or when they returned after a 
victory. Other poets composed hymns, which the priests 
used in their worship. But as none of these were written 
down, the Druids having made it unlawful to keep any 



10 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

record of what was done on these occasions, the memory 
of them soon faded away. 

i All oak trees were considered sacred by the Druids; 
and where the mistletoe plant was found growing upon 
one, it was made the occasion of a magnificent festival. 
The Druids also built for their worship a kind of open-air 
temple, formed by enclosing a large space of ground with 
•stones so immense that we wonder to this day how they 
were able to set them up in their present position. 

These Druids had everything their own way; they 
w*re not only priests and poets, but law-givers, teachers, 
judges, and physicians; and they took care to keep up 
the idea of their power by surrounding themselves with 
mystery. The most ancient of their temples is at Stone- 
henge, near the city of Salisbury; but another, better 
preserved and more nearly perfect in form, is near Kes- 
wick in Cumberland. 

Besides the harmless ceremonies already mentioned, 
the Druids had another kind of worship which fills our 
minds with horror; the sacrifice of human beings. Fear- 
ful tales are told of their burning alive hundreds of per- 
sons at once, usually criminals, in great wicker cages; 
and what are called "sacrificial stones" are still standing, 
on which we can imagine the victim laid, while fierce 
faces looked eagerly on, waiting for the death-stroke. 
The remembrance of these terrible scenes blots out the 
more innocent and pleasing parts of the picture; and we 
are glad to learn that about a hundred years after the in- 
vasion of Britain by Julius Caesar, Druidism was abolished 
forever. 

This great general was engaged in a war in Gaul, (the 
modern France), a country occupied by a race of men 



ANCIENT BRITAIN AND THE ROMANS. 11 

much like the Britons, when it occurred to him that there 
was an island just across the Channel which he might as 
well add to his other conquests. He crossed with his 
-army over the narrowest part of the sea, now known as 
the Straits of Dover, and landed at a place called Deal, 
not far from the present city of Dover, in Kent. The 
poor Britons, naked savages though they were and armed 
only with miserable weapons, fought so hard with their 
-dull swords and weak arrows that Caesar's soldiers were 
driven back more than once. At last, however, Roman 
•discipline and Roman steel got the better of ignorant 
bravery, and after the loss of many men, Caesar managed 
to encamp on British ground. 

The summer of the year 55 B. C. was now drawing to 
a close, and as Caesar was afraid of the equinoctial gales 
he decided to go back to Gaul and leave the Britons 
alone; but the next year, 54 B. C, he came again, for he 
was not easily turned from his purposes. (Remember, 
that in counting the years before the birth of Christ, the 
number grows less and less as it gets nearer to our own 
time). The Britons were not in Caesar's day one solid 
nation, governed by a king or chief; they were divided 
into many tribes, which were always quarreling with one 
another, and scarcely ever acted together; being, like 
most savages, ignorant of the fact that "union is strength." 
It happened just at this time, however, that the brave 
and spirited Caswallon, who has been already mentioned, 
was chosen general over several of the tribes in the south- 
eastern part of Britain, and under his direction they agreed 
to combine against the intruders. Caswallon was driven 
l>ack by Caesar's large and well-trained army, and then 
the British union melted away. Deserted by his neigh- 



12 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

bors, he was at last obliged to beg for peace, which Caesar 
granted on very easy terms. He demanded a tribute, 
which was probably never paid, and a few hostages, of 
whom we hear nothing further; then, getting into their 
boats with all convenient speed, the Romans sailed 
away. 

Such was the so-called "Conquest of Britain." Caesar 
took no towns, left no garrisons, carried away no spoils, 
and marched into the country only a few miles from the 
sea-coast. It is true that he defeated the Britons in sev- 
eral battles, but this was all; and for a hundred years 
after he left the island they were as independent of the 
Romans, except for some commercial intercourse, as they 
had been before he came. His invasion was of some 
advantage to them, however; they sent the products of 
their country to Rome, getting valuable commodities in 
return; and, what was more important, some of their 
young men went there to be educated, and brought back 
with them a knowledge of Roman civilization. 

In the year 43 A. D., a British traitor advised the em- 
peror Claudius to send an army to conquer his native 
country, and a general named Aulus Plautius was sent to 
Britain. This time the Britons were really vanquished, 
but it took long years to accomplish the conquest; and 
many a Roman soldier found a grave on British soil before 
the fierce patriots would give up the struggle. A very 
able British chieftain named Cynobelin, (called by Shak- 
speare "Cymbeline," in his play of that name), had died 
just before Aulus Plautius came to the island, but even 
though he had lived it would have made little difference; 
Rome was too powerful for the Britons. 

Another prince about whom many romantic stories are 



ANCIENT BRITAIN AND THE ROMANS. 13 

told was Caradoc, (Latin, Caractacus). This fine soldier 
made a brilliant defence among the mountains of Wales, 
but was finally overcome, taken prisoner, and carried to 
Rome with his family. When he was taken before Clau- 
dius, after being marched through the streets in the train 
of the victorious general, he made an address to the em- 
peror so noble and touching that the latter set him at 
liberty. 

It was next the Druids' turn to suffer. They had grad- 
ually retired to their sacred island of Mona, now called 
Anglesey, at the north-western extremity of Wales, and 
there they were practising their religion, feeling quite 
safe from any interference. But the Roman general Sue- 
tonius, suspecting that this stronghold of the Druids 
afforded a refuge to rebels, pursued them into their re- 
treat, defeated them in battle, and, if we may believe the 
hideous story, burned them alive in their own wicker 
cages. 

While these dreadful things were taking place in Ang- 
lesey, others, different but also terrible, were going on 
elsewhere. A native tribe called the Iceni had been left 
by their chief at his death under the command of his 
queen, Boadicea, in the hope that even the Romans would 
respect her position as a woman. But he did not know 
them. She and her daughters were shamefully treated, 
and the queen was scourged, according to the cruel 
Roman practice, by the hard-hearted conquerors. As 
was natural, her people determined to avenge these in- 
sults, and a battle followed where Boadicea, standing up 
in her chariot, her long yellow hair streaming behind her 
and her royal robes displayed in their utmost splendor, 
fought like a tigress; but the Britons were no match for 



14 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



their enemies. They broke their ranks and fled, and the 
unhappy queen ended her life by poison. Cowper's- 
poem of "Boadicea," beginning: 

"When the British warrior-queen 
Bleeding from the Roman rods;" 

presents a thrilling picture of her heroism and her suffer- 
ings. 

A pleasanter subject is the rule of Julius Agricola, a 
Roman general who was sent to Britain about 80 A. D. 
He taught the natives to cultivate the ground, (the word 
Agricola means farmer), to build good houses, to make 
roads and bridges; he made the collection of taxes as 
easy as possible, and allowed no inferior officer to oppress 
the people. He defended them against their troublesome 
neighbors the Picts and Scots, who lived in the northern 
part of the island, then called Caledonia, the old name 
for Scotland. The Scots came from Ireland, but we 
know very little about the Picts except that they were 
probably a tribe of the ancient Britons. To keep them 
in their own country, Agricola built a line of forts stretch- 
ing across Scotland, or rather Caledonia, from the Frith 
of Forth to the Clyde. In the next century, (the second 
after Christ), a stone wall sixteen feet high and twelve 
broad was built farther to the south, from the Solway 
Frith to the River Tyne. Traces of the latter, which was 
called "The Picts' Wall," may still be seen in Northum- 
berland. 

Britain had now settled down quietly into the condition 
of a Roman province. The conquerors, with that prac- 
tical wisdom which marked everything they did, made 
the inhabitants as proud of being Roman citizens as they 
had been before of being independent Britons. Magni- 



ANCIENT BRITAIN AND THE ROMANS. 15- 

ficent buildings were put up in various parts of the island;, 
excellent roads were made, forts were built so strong that 
they were expected to last for thousands of years — they \ 
have all tumbled to pieces centuries ago — and all the 
evidences of what is called material civilization were 
abundant in the land. The most important town was 
York, (British, Caer-Ebroc; Latin, Eboracum), and very- 
interesting remains of the Roman times have been dis- 
covered there. Among others is a heavy coil of auburn 
hair, found in the stone coffin of some British lady, with 
the jet pins still fastened in it just as she was buried with, 
them perhaps fifteen hundred years ago. 

We have seen that the Druid priests, as a body, were 
destroyed by the Roman general Suetonius. Their reli- 
gion fell with them, and the Britons were obliged, in out- 
ward appearance at least, to adopt that of their conquer- 
ors, the old mythological system. It is not known at. 
what time Christianity was introduced into the island. 
Tradition says it was at a very early period, and as the 
British church was represented by three bishops at the 
Council of Aries, in Gaul, in the year 314 A. D., we have: 
proof that it was well established before that date. The 
first martyr to the Christian faith, St. Alban, is thought 
to have lived toward the end of the third century. The 
emperor Constantine made Christianity the religion of 
the whole Roman empire early in the fourth century, so 
we may look upon the inhabitants of Britain from that 
time as being wholly converted to the Christian faith. 
Constantine's father, Constantius Chlorus, an able general 
and most excellent man, lived in Britain for many years, 
and his wife, Helena, who was herself a Christian, is said 
to have been a British princess. The reign of Constan- 



16 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

tine was the happiest and most tranquil period of the 
Roman dominion in Britain. Dark times were to come, 
and the fair island was for centuries a scene of confusion 
and bloodshed. 



\\X L'l 



CHAPTER Ii. 

THE SAXONS AND THE HEPTARCHY. 

OST of the troubles of the Britons during the 
fourth century A. D. came from their unruly 
neighbors, the Picts and Scots. It also some- 
vfliies happened that they unluckily chose the wrong em- 
peror when more than one laid claim to the Roman 
crown, and were severely punished when the next one set 
up his authority; but these were small evils compared to 
the torments they endured from the unconquered and 
unconquerable savages of the north. To add to their 
misery a new enemy appeared on the eastern coast, the 
Saxons, who were so destructive that a special officer 
was appointed to look after them, called "The Count of 
the Saxon Shore." For some years the great Roman 
general Theodosius, a worthy successor of Agricola and 
Constantius Chlorus, made Britain once more a land of 
happiness and peace. After his departure, they quite 
innocently took up the cause of a pretender. A large 
number of them followed him into Gaul; and when he 
was defeated and killed they passed into Armorica, that 
peninsula in the western part of France which separates 
the English Channel from the Bay of Biscay. They 
hoped to cross over from there to their own country, and 



THE SAXONS AND THE HEPTARCHY. 17 

try to hide away in Cornwall from the vengeance of the 
successful emperor, but being kindly received by the 
Armoricans they were induced to stay and settle among 
them. Here they were joined by so many of their coun- 
trymen that the peninsula received from them the name 
of Brittany, which it bears to this day. 

The worst misfortune of all those which befel the un- 
happy country was yet to come. The Romans, them- 
selves in terror of the wild nations who were ravaging 
their beautiful Italy, declared that they could no longer 
keep up an army in Britain. The Britons were in despair; 
they begged and prayed so piteously for help that skilful 
generals were several times sent to their relief; but the 
time came when prayers were of no avail, and about 
420 A. D. the last Roman garrison set sail from Britain, 
to return no more. 

Now was the chance for the Picts and Scots. They 
"had already ravaged the country between the two Roman 
walls so many times that it had become a desert and they 
■could not find there anything to steal or any people worth 
killing; so they came boldly over the southern wall, no 
longer guarded by Roman soldiers, and the Britons lost 
heart and hope. In the four hundred years during which 
Rome had been their mistress they had become tame 
and spiritless, having had but little use for their weapons, 
and now they were at the mercy of enemies as ferocious 
as they themselves had been when they fought against 
Caesar. They sent to the Roman counsul Aetius, gov- 
ernor of Gaul, a letter which they called "The Groans of 
the Britons." "The barbarians," they said, "drive us to 
the sea; the sea throws us back on the swords of the 
barbarians; we have nothing left us but the wretched 






18 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

i 

choice of being either drowned or butchered." But 
Aetius could not help them, and they had recourse to the 
Saxons, the general name given to the pirates who came 
over the North Sea. 

Nobody knows exactly where these marauders came 
from, but probably it was from what is now Denmark,, 
(then called Jutland), and the north-western part of Ger- 
many. 

In an evil hour Vortigern, the chief man among the- 
Britons, driven to despair by the constant inroads of 
the Picts and Scots, invited these Saxon pirates to come 
and help his countrymen against their northern foes. 
They came, they saw more than they had ever seen be- 
fore of the beautiful and fertile island, and they made it 
their own. They fell on the land, as a modern writer 
expresses it, "like wolves on a sick deer." There were 
three of these heathen tribes, the Angles, the Saxons, and 
the Jutes; but in old times they were all lumped together 
as Saxons, while now it has become the fashion to speak 
of them all as English. The name is of no consequence, 
but the descendants of races thus mingled were destined. 
to become the mightiest upon earth. 

The Saxons, as we call them for convenience, landed at 
a place called the Isle of Thanet, in Kent. Since then 
the drifting sand has filled up the channel which sepa- 
rated it from the rest of Kent, so that it is a part of 
the main land; but we can still tell pretty nearly where 
our ancestors set foot, in England in the year 449 A. D., 
almost exactly five hundred years after the first visit of 
Julius Caesar. 

The Saxon leaders were two brothers, Henghist and 
Horsa, and it is said that the British King Vortigern 



THE SAXONS AND THE HEPTARCHY. 19 

married a blue-eyed daughter of Henghist,the pretty Row- 
ena, so for a while all were good friends. But the Sax- 
ons, disregarding the fact that they had come to the island 
expressly as the allies and guests of the natives, made 
peace with the Scots and Picts, and then all together fell 
upon the cheated and betrayed Britons and plunged them 
again into the horrors of war. Horsa was killed in bat- 
tle, King Vortigern was deposed by his own people, who 
thought he favored the Saxons too much, and fresh bands 
of pirates came over the ocean, at the invitation of their 
countrymen, who soon took possession of the whole 
island. Having a heathen religion of their own to which 
they were very much attached, they were particularly 
furious against everything that had to do with Christianity. 
They burned the churches, killed or drove away the 
priests and monks, and seized upon everything precious, 
such as the gold and silver vessels contained in the sacred 
buildings. It was not so much that they wanted these 
things as that they hated the people who had them. As 
soon as the dreaded name of "Saxon" was heard, the 
clergy gathered up such possessions as they could take 
with them and fled, leaving all the rest, including their 
few and precious manuscripts, to the mercy of the torch 
and axe. The wonder is that they were able to keep up 
as a church at all, in the midst of such frightful discour- 
agements. The victory of the Saxons meant the triumph 
of heathendom over Christianity for the time being. As 
for the Britons in general, those who were not killed or 
made slaves were driven out of the country, most of them 
taking refuge among the mountains of Wales, where their 
descendants still live. Others went to Cornwall in the 
south-western part of England, a wild, rocky district 



20 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

where their enemies could not pursue them, while others 
again crossed over the channel to Brittany, which had 
already begun to be called by their name. They do not 
seem to have mingled very generally with the Saxons by 
marriage any more than they had done with the Romans. 
The truth is that the Saxons were by far the cleverer of 
the two races; and being absolutely without an idea of 
fair dealing or truth-telling, they had the simple-minded 
British Christians at a great disadvantage. 

We must not close our account of the Britons without 
saying something about King Arthur, a person of whom 
so many wonderful stories are told that for a long time it 
was supposed that he was no more a real man than was 
Prince Bladud. But there seems no reason why there 
should not have been a heroic British prince of the name 
who fought bravely against the Saxons that were trying to 
destroy his country, and was finally killed in a battle with 
them. With him ends the story of the old Britons — a 
brave, simple-minded, unfortunate race. It is supposed 
that they were finally put down by the Saxons in the sixth 
century after Christ. 

One curious story about King Arthur is that he had a 
large round table, made so that when he and his friends 
sat at dinner together there should be no head or foot 
to it, but all should be on an equality. The companions 
who used to feast with him there were called " Knights of 
the Round Table." 

The Saxons did not form one undivided kingdom, any 
more than the Britons had done. Coming into the coun- 
try at different times, as they did, each robber-chief ruled 
over as much land as he could seize and defend, and the 
island, or rather the southern part of it, (now called Eng- 






THE SAXONS AND THE HEPTARCHY. 21 

land), was divided, at some time, into seven small king- 
doms. This arrangement was called the Heptarchy, the 
word meaning a government of seven, but there was 
nothing lasting about it. Sometimes there were more 
than seven, sometimes fewer, and there was never a time 
when there was not fighting going on among them. 

The first of these kingdoms to be set up was Kent, in 
the south-eastern part of the island. This was settled by 
the Jutes, who are often spoken of as Saxons. Later 
arose the three kingdoms of the South Saxons, (Sussex), 
West Saxons, (Wessex), and East Saxons, (Essex). The 
part ruled over by the Angles was called Anglia, and was 
divided into the country of the North-folk, (Norfolk), and 
the South-folk, (Suffolk). The middle kingdom of the 
island was called Mercia, and the extreme northern one 
was formed of two provinces which together made Nor- 
thumbria, this name meaning, "the land north of the 
Humber." 

Now that the fierce Saxons are firmly established in 
Britain, the rightful owners of the land being driven away 
and the Picts and Scots shut up in their own country of 
Caledonia, we come to the most important thing that 
ever happened in their history after the migration. 

In the course of the wars which everybody in that age 
of the world was always carrying on with everybody else, 
it chanced that some English children were carried to 
Rome to be sold for slaves. There they were seen by 
the good abbot Gregory, who was pleased with their fair 
hair and blue eyes, and asked who they were. "They 
are Angles," was the reply. "If they were Christians 
they would be not Angles, but angels," * answered the 

* ' ' Non Angli, sed angeli. " 



22 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

abbot. From this time Gregory desired nothing so much 
as to go as a missionary to these fair-haired Angles who 
might so easily be made angels. After a while he was 
made Pope himself, and one of the first things he thought 
of was his old project for converting the English. He 
sent Augustine* with forty other monks, to the island, 
where they were kindly received by Ethelbert, king of 
Kent, who was also Bretwalda, (Britain-wielder), or head 
of all the tribes. Ethelbert had married a French Chris- 
tian princess, named Bertha; and when St. Augustine 
asked leave to preach to the Saxons, Ethelbert consented, 
though he would not at first allow the monks to come 
under any roof for fear of evil spirits, but made them hold 
their meetings in the open air. After a while he became 
himself a convert, and as it was thought the proper thing 
in those days for the mass of the people to adopt the 
religion of their ruler, ten thousand of the warriors of 
Britain followed his example, and were baptized by St. 
Augustine, who was afterward made the first Archbishop 
of Canterbury. It would be too much to expect that all 
these converts became good and holy men; a part of 
them remained cruel, untruthful, and treacherous; but 
when the gentle and merciful religion of Christ had once 
found a footing among them it did produce some effect, 
and many of them left off their barbarous ways and set 
about tilling the ground and living peacefully. There 
were still doings horrible enough to make one's heart sick 
only to read about them; but, on the whole, the nation 
had taken a turn for the better. The other kingdoms, 
one by one, followed the example of Kent; churches 

* Pronounced Augus'tine, accentuating the second syllable. 



THE SAXONS AND THE HEPTARCHY. 23 

were built and monasteries founded;* and though the 
pagans at first attacked their Christian neighbors, they 
ended by believing in the god of the Christians and giv- 
ing up those they had formerly worshipped. This was 
a good thing for them, too (though they did not know it), 
in their intercourse with other countries. During the 
iifth and sixth centuries, when the main part of Britain 
was heathen, it was scarcely mentioned by the writers of 
that time; but now it began again to take its place among 
nations and to be spoken of with respect. The world 
could not help knowing that a people who believed in 
Christianity were greater and nobler than those who had 
no better gods than Thor and Woden. 

From the time of the first landing of the Saxons in 449 
A. D., to the coming of St. Augustine in 597, about a hun- 
dred and fifty years had passed. Britain may now be 
said to have been completely conquered and settled by 
the tribes of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. The British 
language was replaced by old English, (generally called 
•Saxon) and the old Roman laws by those made by the 
Saxons for themselves. The next event of importance 
in connection with the Saxon Heptarchy is the bringing 
•of all the kingdoms together under one government by 
Egbert, King of Wessex, in 827 A. D. 

We owe a part of our knowledge of what I have been 
telling you to a monk named Gildas, who lived while 
Briton and Saxon were struggling together to see which 

* A monastery or convent was a place where many men lived to- 
gether in order to give up their whole time to religious duties. After 
a time women began to live together in the same way and for the 
same purpose; then, to distinguish the two kinds of institutions, 
those for women were called convents, and those for men, monasteries. 



24 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

could keep possession of the beautiful country one owned 
and the other wanted; and another part to a monk 
named Bede, usually called "The Venerable," who came 
perhaps a hundred and fifty years later. Bede lived a. 
beautiful life and died a beautiful death. He was prob- 
ably the most learned man in England. The Pope 
wished to make him a bishop, but he chose to remain a 
simple monk and to spend his life in teaching. It is said 
that as many as six hundred young men came at one time 
to be instructed by him, for at that time there were no 
colleges or universities, and no schools except those in 
the monasteries. When Bede was a very old man, and 
near his death, he was busy in translating the Gospel of 
St. John into the Saxon language. The young monk 
who was writing it down for him said: "You must be very 
tired, master; will you not rest?" "No," said Bede;. 
"there is but little more to do. Write quickly; I must 
finish my work." The last verse was written; he was 
laid, by his own desire, upon the floor, his head supported 
in his pupil's arms; and with the words "Glory to God!" 
on his lips, he passed quietly away. 

You can see how strong an impression the Saxons left 
on the country they conquered if you notice the names 
of our days of the week. Every one is named after a 
Saxon heathen god or goddess; even Saturday, which 
most persons suppose to be named for the Roman Saturn,, 
is from a Saxon god called Saeter. Sunday and Monday 
are from the sun and moon, Tuesday from Tuisco, Wed- 
nesday from Woden, Thursday from Thor, and Friday 
from Freya, the northern Venus. The names of the 
months, on the other hand, remain as the Romans left 
them. 




FROM EGBERT TO THE SIX BOY-KINGS. 25 
CHAPTER III. 

FROM EGBERT TO THE SIX BOY- KINGS. 

Y the end of the eighth century the kingdoms 
of the Heptarchy, whether more or fewer than 
seven, were in a very unsettled state. There 
had been a great deal of annexing by strong monarch s 
and giving up by weak ones, which naturally takes place 
whenever it happens that one country contains several 
independent and rival states. Then there usually arises 
one person wiser and more able than the others, who gets 
hold of the possessions of the rest, one after another, and 
is finally acknowledged by all as their master. So it was 
with Egbert, who was at first only king of Wessex (that 
is, of the West Saxons). The whole country now began 
to be called England, (Angle-land), though the name 
did not come into general use until the tenth century. 
Egbert, before he became king of all England, spent 
some time at the court of Charlemagne, who ruled over 
France (the ancient Gaul). The latter, being a most 
enlightened man, encouraged learning in every way, and 
even had a school in his palace for his children and their 
companions. Egbert's own country had furnished one of 
the teachers in Charlemagne's "School of the Palace. " 
When Egbert returned to England, which he did on 
the death of a rival king of Wessex, his first work was to 
fall upon his neighbors, conquer them, and add their 
kingdoms to his own, until nearly all of what is now Eng- 
land submitted to him, though some kings were allowed 
to keep their empty titles. He was the last person to be 



26 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

elected Bretwalda, as he was the first king of all England; 
so the change from a Heptarchy to a monarchy was 
greater in name than in reality. Under his rule the coun- 
try enjoyed more peace and prosperity than it had known 
for a long time, and the only serious trouble he had after 
uniting the seven kingdoms into one, was from a new 
•enemy, the Danes, who had begun to make their appear- 
ance on the English coast 

The island of Britain, for the first thousand years of 
what we may call its civilized life, was always a mark for 
the ambition or the greed of other nations. First there 
were the Romans, then the Scots and Picts, then the 
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, and now the Danes. The 
new pirates were as fierce, as strong, as cruel, as the Eng- 
lish themselves had been when they swooped down upon 
the Britons, and at first one is inclined to say, "served 
them right!" But we must remember that these were not 
the same English as those earlier freebooters had been, 
but their descendants, grown comparatively peaceful, and 
willing to live quietly at home and mind their own busi- 
ness. The Danish flag became to them a sight of horror. 
It was of a blood-red color, with a black raven pictured 
on it; and when the wind waved the flag the Danes de- 
clared that the raven was flapping his wings in sign of 
victory. To the suffering English the emblem meant 
only misery and destruction. 

On Egbert's death, (836), his son Ethelwolf became 
king. This prince had not the military spirit of his father, 
and the Danes began to come to England every year, 
landing sometimes in one place and sometimes in an- 
other, so that the unfortunate English never knew when 
to be ready for them. Fire, slaughter, and plunder, went 



FROM EGBERT TO THE SIX BOY-KINGS. 27 

-with them everywhere, and they found a strange pleasure 
in destroying all that they could not use. They managed 
to make settlements, first on the Isle of Thanet, (where 
the Saxons landed in 449 and St. Augustine in 597), and 
then at a place nearer London called the Isle of Sheppey. 
Ethelwolf defeated them several times in battle, and then, 
though he knew that his country was bleeding from their 
cruel swords, went on a pilgrimage to Rome to see the 
Pope, taking with him his son Alfred, six years old. 

Ethelwolf died not long after his return to England, 
'(858), leaving four sons, each of whom became king in 
.his turn. Of the first three, Ethelbald, Ethelbert, and 
Ethelred, ("Ethel" means "noble"), there is not much 
to be said. They all had to fight the Danes, but this, 
unhappily, is too old a story to be worth repeating; so 
we will pass on to the reign of Alfred, who was perhaps 
at once the greatest and the best man that ever sat on 
the throne of England. He became king by the death 
•of his brother Ethelred in 872 A. D. 

Noble, strong, wise, truth-telling Alfred! The smallest 
thing about him is interesting to us. In those days very 
few persons could read, and there were scarcely any 
"books to be had for love or money; but Osburga, Alfred's 
mother, had been so fortunate as to get possession of a 
"beautiful illuminated* book which she promised to the 
one of her sons who should first learn to read. Alfred 
at once set about studying, and was soon able to claim 
the book for his own. This was about six hundred years 
before printing was invented, so that each book had to 
be copied out by hand; and such work, taking much 
time, was very costly. 

* A book having pictures on the margin of the page. 



28 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

We do not hear anything more about Alfred until he 
was twenty-two years old, when his brother Ethelred, (a 
fine young man, much like Egbert), was killed in fighting 
against the Danes. It was a discouraging moment for 
the new king. Many of his towns and villages had been 
turned, the best and bravest of his subjects had been 
massacred, and much of the best land in his kingdom 
was left without ploughing or planting because the inso- 
lent Danes were settled in the very heart of the country, 
ready to snatch away everything as soon as it was grown 
and ready for use. Alfred had several fights with them,, 
sometimes getting the better and sometimes the worse; 
but at length his followers became discouraged, his army 
melted away, and he wandered about alone dressed like 
a peasant and wondering what he should do next. 

It is to this time of his life that the famous story of the 
cakes belongs. He had gone into the hut of a neatherd* 
to rest awhile, perhaps expecting to get a meal and a 
bed. The man's wife had some cakes baking over the 
fire and asked the stranger to turn them while she was. 
busy elsewhere. As he had some other rather important 
things to think of, he let the cakes burn, for which she 
gave him a good scolding when she came back, saying- 
that he would be ready enough to eat them, though he 
would not take the trouble to watch them. 

Another story told of his wanderings is that he went in 
the disguise of a harper into the camp of Guthrum, the 
Danish chief, and, while amusing the Danes with music 
and good stories, gained important information about 
their camp. At length, thinking the time ripe for an 
attack, he got together as many men as he could at what 

* Pronounced neat-herd. 

\ 



FROM EGBERT TO THE SIX BOY-KINGS. 29 

was called "the island" of Athelney; the island being a 
piece of firm ground mostly surrounded by marshes, 
which strangers would find it hard to cross. From this 
place he marched forth with his army and defeated the 
Danes in a hard-fought battle. He made a treaty with 
them afterward, in which it was agreed that Guthrum and 
all his followers should become Christians, and that Al- 
fred should give them a large tract of land in England, or 
rather, should allow them to keep what they had already 
taken for themselves. 

Alfred now showed himself as good a ruler as he was 
a general. He seems not to have had one selfish thought, 
but to have lived entirely for the good of his people. 
When he was older he wrote, "So long as I have lived, I 
have tried to live worthily." And he did live worthily. 
His first care was to repair his ruined cities and forts, to 
organize companies of militia in places most likely to be 
attacked by the Danes, (for though Guthrum was put 
down, there were thousands more at home to come), and 
to provide a fleet or navy. As the people in England were 
not used to building war-ships, Alfred sent for men from 
other countries to teach them; and when the ships were 
built, his sailors had to learn how to manage them. And 
now, one thousand years after Alfred's time, the English 
is the ruling flag on all the seas. 

Safety being provided for, Alfred's next thought was of 
improvement. He made excellent laws and had them 
carried out; he caused justice to be dealt to every man, 
rich or poor, and he rebuilt the ruined churches and pro- 
vided for their being kept up. He had schools started 
where young people could learn at least to read and 
write, and said that every free-born youth who was able 



30 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

to afford it should "abide at his book till he could well 
understand English writing." This is somewhat like 
what is now called "compulsory education," except that 
we give it for nothing to people who can not afford to 
pay for it. He was ashamed of the ignorance of his 
countrymen. "When I began to reign," said he, "I can 
not remember one priest who could understand his ser- 
vice-book or explain it in English." All books used in 
the churches and most others were written in Latin, and 
Alfred was a writer of good Saxon prose. Some of his 
books were translations of useful works from Latin into- 
English, and some were original. 

A very interesting old book called the "Anglo-Saxon, 
Chronicle" is supposed to have been begun in his time,, 
perhaps by Alfred himself. It is an account of what took, 
place in England during several hundred years, written 
by the monks at different monasteries, each set of them 
copying what the others had written and making addi- 
tions of their own. It is from this that we get much of 
our knowledge of what was done in those far-off times. 

King Alfred would not have been able to accomplish 
as much as he did if he had not been one of the most 
methodical as well as the most industrious of men. He 
divided his time into three parts; one-third of the twenty- 
four hours he gave to public business, one-third to study 
and religious duties, and the remaining third to sleep, 
eating and amusement. He had no clock, and as he- 
wanted to know just how much time he spent at each 
occupation, he ordered candles to be made with notches- 
so arranged that it took just an hour to burn from one 
notch to another. Then, because the houses, (even the 
king's palace) were so poorly built that draughts of wind 



FROM EGBERT TO THE SIX BOY- KINGS. 31 

made the candles flare, he invented lanterns in which 
thinly-shaved horn took the place of glass, a material 
still unknown in England. 

Alfred had one more hard struggle with the Danes,, 
about ten years after the defeat of Guthrum. A terrible 
pirate named Hastings ravaged the coasts, but he was- 
driven away and then there was peace until the sorrowful 
hour of Alfred's death (901). He was worn out, doubt- 
less with hard work, for he was only fifty-two, and ought 
to have lived still many useful years. But he had never 
spared himself, and probably thought that it was "better 
to wear out than rust out." 

Alfred the Great left one son, Edward, afterward called 
"The Elder." The Danes took advantage of Alfred's 
death to invade England, and Edward drove them back 
just as Alfred had done. Then came his son Athelstan, 
another warlike king, who kept up the credit of the 
family and ruled England wisely and well. He hit upon 
a new idea for helping along commerce and increasing 
among his people the desire to visit distant countries. 
He declared that any merchant who had made three long 
sea-voyages on his own account, (that is, not being hired 
by anyone else), should be raised to the rank of Thane y 
or gentleman. 

Athelstan had been a great favorite with his grandfather, 
Alfred, who gave him a little sword with a golden scab- 
bard, and a warrior's belt set with precious stones. He 
was never married, and at his death his brother Edmund, 
a boy of eighteen, was made king. He was the first of a. 
series called "The Six Boy- Kings." 

In many ways, the Saxons laws and customs were dif- 
ferent from those of other nations. First, there was their 



32 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Witanagemot, or Meeting of Wise Men, selected entirely 
from the higher classes. The king was expected to con- 
sult this assembly, and its consent was necessary to all 
laws. In those days no one had ever thought of repre- 
sentative government, so this senate consisted of such 
persons as the king chose to summon. 

Some strange notions of justice existed. When a man 
was accused of a crime, the case was put into the hands 
of twelve men who heard what was to be said on both 
sides, and then decided on his guilt or innocence. This 
was all very well, but if there seemed to be any doubt 
about it, there were two ways in which one might 
clear himself. He might take a solemn oath that he was 
not guilty, if he could get other men, called compurga- 
tors, to swear to the same thing with him; or he might 
try what was called the ordeal. This obliged him to 
thrust his arm up to the elbow in boiling water, hold a 
piece of red-hot iron in his hand, or walk about blind- 
folded among burning ploughshares. If at the end of 
three days there was no sign of burning on his hands or 
feet, it was taken for granted that he was innocent. 

The old English houses were what we should call very 
uncomfortable. There were no chimneys, a hole being 
made in the roof to let out the smoke; and we may be 
sure that a great deal of it stayed in. Our ancestors must 
have had strong eyes not to grow blind under such cir- 
cumstances. There was no glass except in the windows 
of the very rich; some others used to tack up white linen 
to keep out the cold wind and the rain, but many did 
without any screen whatever. All the furniture was 
plain; no chairs except in palaces; only stools or settees 
without backs. At the same time, everything belonging 



FROM EGBERT TO THE SIX BOY-KINGS. 33 

to eating and drinking was as fine as they could get it. 
They had cups and dishes of silver and gold, (when they 
could afford it), and instead of glass goblets used curi- 
ously carved horns of cattle. The Saxons were great 
eaters and drinkers; they had few other pleasures except 
hunting and fighting; and it must have been a disgusting 
thing for a person of refinement to be present at one of 
their drunken revels. 




CHAPTER IV. 

FROM THE SIX BOY -KINGS TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

IT will be convenient to remember the boy-kings 
as three pairs of brothers : Edmund and Edred, 
brothers of Athelstan, and therefore sons of 
Edward the Elder; Edwy and Edgar, sons of Edmund; 
Edward the Martyr and Ethelred II., called the Unready, 
sons of Edgar. As some of these lived to be middle- 
aged men, the name ''boy-king" applies only to the age 
at which they began to reign. 

Edmund, the first of these, was called "The Magnifi- 
cent," because he built fine houses. He had to fight the 
Danes, whether he liked it or not; and when he found 
that some remains of the old Britons, who lived in the 
mountainous country of Cumbria (now Cumberland), 
were secretly helping the Danes, he went against them 
with an army, conquered them, and made a present of 
them and their country to the king of Scotland, the for- 
mer Caledonia. Edmund's early death at the age of 
twenty four was owing to his own quick temper and lack 
3 



34 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

of self-control. A robber named Leolf, who had been 
banished from the country, had the impudence to come 
in and seat himself at the king's table at dinner. Ordi- 
narily there would have been nothing out of the way about 
this, for it was then the custom for anyone who wanted a 
meal to take a seat at any table. But Leolf, being a well- 
known criminal, was ordered away by the king's guards. 
He refused to go; and Edmund, being excited with wine, 
sprang from his seat and seized him by the hair. The 
ruffian drew a dagger and stabbed him to the heart. 

Edmund's chief adviser had been a monk named 
Dunstan, who was a man of such great ability that it 
seemed natural for him to be at the head of affairs. This 
monk the king made Abbot of Glastonbury, and he soon 
gained with the common people a great reputation for 
holiness, and proved the most useful of ministers.* When 
Edmund was killed by the robber Leolf and his young 
brother Edred became king in his place, Dunstan took 
nearly the whole management of the kingdom into his 
own hands, and was as successful in putting down the 
Danes as if he had been a soldier instead of a priest. 

There are some very curious stories told about St 
Dunstan, as he was afterward called. He was of an ex- 
citable nature, and at one time in his life was a little 
crazy, owing to some previous ill-treatment. When he 
became a monk, being extremely active physically, he 
used to work at a forge in a little blacksmith-shop he 
made for himself. Here (he said) as he was working one 
day, the devil suddenly appeared to him and tried to 
tempt him to do wrong. He happened at the moment 

*A minister, in England, means a person who helps and advises 
the king. 



BOY- KINGS TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 35 

to have a pair of red-hot tongs in his hand, and with these 
he seized the devil by the nose and pinched him so hard 
that he roared horribly and broke away from him. This 
anecdote, devoutly believed at the time, shows the state 
of public intelligence in the tenth century. 

Edred did not live long, and as he left no children, 
his nephew Edwy, a boy of sixteen, became king at his 
death. Edwy had married a beautiful girl who was re- 
lated to him, and as the church which Dunstan repre- 
sented did not allow such marriages, it made ill-feeling 
between him and the king. After the coronation the 
nobles sat down to a great feast, where they wanted to 
eat till they were stupid and drink till they were drunk, 
as was the custom of the Saxons. Edwy preferred to 
spend the evening with his wife and her mother, so he 
quietly left the table and joined the ladies in their apart- 
ment. This made Dunstan very angry, and he followed 
the king and dragged him back by force, abusing him 
roundly at the same time. Edwy naturally wished to get 
rid of such a minister, so he asked Dunstan what he had 
done with all the money he had used in King Edred's 
reign. Dunstan could not tell, for he had never kept any 
accounts; and Edwy made this an excuse for driving him 
out of the country. Dunstan, however, had plenty of 
friends among the clergy, and they took the beautiful 
Elgiva, Edwy's queen, branded her in the cheek with a 
red-hot iron and sold her for a slave. She was taken to 
Ireland, where the people took pity on her, cured her 
wounds and sent her back to her husband; but on her 
way Dunstan's friends, led on by Archbishop Odo, seized 
her and cut her with swords so cruelly that she died. 
When Edwy knew this he too died, of a broken heart, 



36 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and his brother Edgar, a boy of fifteen, succeeded him. 

It is pleasant, at last, to be able to make a break in 
this long story of cruelty and misery, and to say that 
Edgar's reign of seventeen years was a prosperous and 
peaceful one. With Dunstan's assistance he triumphed 
over all his enemies, and when he grew old enough to 
govern for himself, he ruled with so much firmness and 
good sense that it was said that gold bracelets might be 
hung up on every tree in the woods, and no one would 
dare to touch them. 

He made friends of the Welsh (who were the descend- 
ants of the old Britons and paid tribute to England), by 
a very simple device. Both England and Wales were 
overrun with wolves, which were so ravenous that they 
would kill and carry off not only farm animals but little 
children, and sometimes even attack men. The Welsh 
were very poor and found it hard to raise money enough 
to pay their yearly tribute. Edgar allowed them to bring 
him every year three hundred wolves' heads instead of 
money, so that the country was soon cleared of these 
destructive animals. 

Of a reign so prosperous there is little to tell. It is 
said that Edgar was once rowed in a boat on the River 
Dee (near Chester) by eight tributary kings, while he did 
the steering. This, if it ever happened, was probably 
done for a joke. Edgar's private character was not good. 
He carried off his first wife from a convent, and obtained 
the second, the beautiful Elfrida, by the murder of her 
husband. A few years after this second marriage, Edgar 
the Peaceable (so called because he was so ready for 
war that no one dared to attack him), died, leaving his 
kingdom to his oldest son, Edward, aged sixteen, the 



BOY- KINGS TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 37 

child of the nun whom Edgar had run away with. El- 
frida, however, determined that her own son, Ethelred, 
should be king. On one occasion, Edward stopped at 
her castle to pay her a visit of politeness. As he was 
going away she handed him a cup of wine, as was the 
custom when a guest was leaving a house.* While he 
was drinking this, one of her servants stabbed him in the 
back. The poor boy put spurs to his horse and rode 
awav; but he soon became faint from loss of blood, fell 
from his horse and was dragged along by the stirrup until 
he died. The murdered king has always had the sur- 
name of "The Martyr," not because religion had any- 
thing to do with the crime, but because he was killed 
unjustly. 

Poor little Ethelred, the son of Edgar and Elfrida, 
might have been called "The Unlucky." He was only 
seven years old at the time of his half-brother's murder, 
and, it is said, wept bitterly at seeing the cowardly deed, 
whereupon his mother beat him so hard with a thick wax 
candle that he never after could endure the sight of a 
candle. When he grew older he was called "The Un- 
ready," which means without rede or counsel, and not, as 
many people think, that he was never ready for the 
Danes. Dunstan died soon after this child was made 
king; and from that time to the end of his life the Danes 
kept pouring in, plundering, killing and wasting wherever 
they went, while Ethelred knew no better plan for getting 
rid of them than that of giving them money to go. Of 
course they came back again for more, the bribe being 
made larger each time. To pay this heavy tribute a 

*Wine offered at such times was called a "stirrup-cup." 



3S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

regular tax was laid, called Dane-geld, or Dane-money, 
which pressed cruelly upon the people. 

The country in France called Normandy, which had 
taken its name from the Northmen who conquered it, 
had now become very powerful, and Ethelred thought it 
would be a good thing to gain its friendship by marrying 
the beautiful Emma, called "The Flower of Normandy, " 
sister to the reigning duke. Her beauty was but skin- 
deep, however; it did not go down to her heart, for she 
showed herself hard, grasping and selfish. Soon after his 
marriage, Ethelred ordered a general massacre of all the 
Danes in his kingdom, many of whom were peaceable 
settlers. Among those murdered was the sister of the 
Danish king Sweyn. She was married to an English 
nobleman, and saw him and her children butchered be- 
fore her eyes. Sweyn took a frightful vengeance on the 
unhappy country, laying it waste year after year, until 
Ethelred succeeded in buying off the bloody foe once 
more with the hard earned gold of his people. At length 
the unequal contest ended; the English king fled to 
Normandy, and Sweyn became in fact king of England. 

There were four of these Danish kings; Sweyn, who 
lived only six week after his victory, Canute (pronounced 
Knut, sounding the K), and Canute's two sons. The con- 
temptible Ethelred, on hearing of Sweyn's death, went 
back to England with promises of amendment; but he 
was incurable. His brave son Edmund got together an 
army to fight Canute. Just at this time the weak and 
wicked Ethelred died, and Canute found his match in 
Edmund, whom the people called Ironside, on account 
of his strength and bravery. Battle after battle was 
fought, and rivers of English and Danish blood shed, 



BOY- KINGS TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST 39 

until at last the chief men on both sides begged the two 
Icings to stop fighting and come to some agreement. It 
was finally settled that Canute should take the northern 
part of the country and Ironside the southern. The 
latter was soon murdered, probably by Canute's orders, 
and the Danish king ruled over all England. 

The reign of this remarkable man began by his putting 
to death in the most cold-blooded manner all the Saxons 
who stood in his way; but after he had had his fill of 
vengeance, and had cut off everybody whom he thought 
dangerous, he made the best king the English had had 
since the time of Edgar the Peaceable. Finding that 
the English were willing to submit to him, he sent away 
most of his Danish soldiers, and tried his best to gain the 
affections of the people. He made no difference between 
Dane and Englishman, but treated all alike, under just 
i-and equal laws. The two sons of Edmund Ironside he 
sent to the king of Sweden with a request that they might 
never trouble him again; but the Swedish king, being of 
a merciful disposition, sent the children to Hungary, 
where they were brought up under the care of his sister. 

A story is told of Canute, which, whether true or not, 
shows what the English people thought of his good sense. 
It is said that when some courtiers had been telling him 
he was lord of the ocean, he ordered his throne to be 
carried down to the sea-shore when the tide was coming 
up. He then haughtily commanded the waves to retire, 
but seeing that they came on as usual, he turned to his 
abashed followers and bade them remark that there was 
something at their feet stronger than he. 

Canute was a widower when he came to England, and 
while there married Emma of Normandy, widow of Ethel- 



40 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

red the Unready. He died in 1035, after a reign of 
nearly twenty years. He was a convert from paganism, 
so that the persecution of the Christians ceased with the 
beginning of his reign. He made laws for putting down 
heathenism, and protected the interests of religion; he 
even tried to atone for his early crimes by building 
churches and monasteries. The English were satisfied 
with him, and had reason to be sorry for his death. 

His son Harold (called Harefoot from his swiftness in 
running) succeeded him, though Canute had agreed with 
queen Emma that Hardicanute, her son, should be king 
at his death. Bui Hardicanute was away, and Harold, 
being in England, had himself proclaimed at once. He 
then sent for Ethelred's sons Alfred and Edward, and 
when they arrived in England killed all their attendants 
with circumstances of the greatest cruelty, and put out 
the eyes of Alfred, the elder of the two princes, who soon 
died from his wounds. On hearing of the horrid deed, 
Emma fled to Normandy with her remaining son, Edward, 
afterward called the Confessor. X 

Harold did not live many years, and at his death his 
half-brother Hardicanute lost no time in coming back to 
England. He caused the body of Harold to be taken 
out of its coffin and thrown into a marsh; he oppressed 
and misgoverned the people of England in every possible 
way; and there was great rejoicing when, in a year or two 
afterward, he died as he had lived, a miserable drunkard. 
And so ended the Danish rule in England. 

The people of the country had had enough of Canute's 
family, and were glad to welcome back Edward, the 
youngest son of Ethelred the Unready and Queen Emma. 
This king, who proved to be the last of the royal line of 



BOY- KINGS TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST 41 

Saxons, passes over the pages of history like a shadow. 
His surname of "The Confessor"* grew out of the fact 
that he was more like a priest than a king. The real ruler 
of England during his reign was the Saxon Earl Godwin ; 
a man of immense tact, energy and force of will, who 
managed everything in the king's name so well that no- 
body missed the royal figure-head. Edward was consid- 
ered a saint even during his lifetime, and the singular 
practice was then begun of bringing children afflicted 
with scrofula or "King's Evil" to the monarch to be 
healed by his touch. The strange delusion on which this 
"touching" was based lasted for seven hundred years. 
Edward married Edith Godwin, daughter of the great 
earl, who had, besides, half a dozen strong, fighting sons 
to help him keep the country in order. A pleasant story 
might be told of the gentle Confessor's life, but what we 
want to know is the history of the people of England — not 
merely biographies of their kings. So we must let Ed- 
ward fade away out of sight, though his subjects did not 
soon let him go out of mind. For hundreds of years 
.after his death the English looked back to his laws (which 
were re illy Godwin's) with regret, and longed for the 
good old times of Edward the Confessor. The one thing 
remaining to remind us of him is Westminster Abbey, 
which he began, though scarcely any of the present struc- 
ture is his work. Edward died in 1066, and Harold 
Godwin, who since his father's death some years before, 
had been prime minister, caused himself to be proclaimed 
king. He had no right by birth to this title, but he had 
everything else that belongs to it; good sense and judg- 

*A confessor is a priest to whom persons confess their sins. 



42 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

merit, firmness, a clear head and a steady hand, and best 
of all, a real love for his country. The birthright king] 
would have been Edgar the Atheling, or Prince, a grand- 
son of Edmund Ironside; but there was no one to take? 
his part, and William, Duke of Normandy, a relation of! 
Edward the Confessor, was watching the progress of 4 
affairs, and getting ready to seize the coveted throne. 




CHAPTER V. 

THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

OME years before the death of Edward the Con- 
fessor, Harold Godwin had visited Normandy, 
and while there had been induced by its duke, 
William, to take a solemn oath never to claim the crown 
of England for himself. It is said that when Harold had 
sworn to do this, the duke took off the cloth from the; 
table on which the Englishman had laid his hand and| 
showed him that it was a chest full of saints' bones, which) 
were supposed to make the oath peculiarly binding. 
Harold was startled, but nevertheless had himself pro- 
claimed king as soon as the breath was out of Edward's 
body. He had a quarrel with his brother Tostig, and the 
latter went to Norway and brought the king of that coun- 
try back to England with him, together with a large 
army. Harold, unwilling to go to war with his brother, 
sent a messenger to him offering forgiveness and large 
possessions if he would lay down his arms. "And what 
will you give my ally, the king of Norway?" inquired 



THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 43 

Tostig. "Seven feet of English earth for a grave," was 
the reply; "or perhaps a little more, as he is taller than 
most men." "Go back," replied Tostig to the herald, 
"and tell my brother to get ready to fight." The result 
•was the battle of Stamford Bridge, in which Tostig and 
the Norwegian king were defeated and killed, and Harold 
marched in triumph to London. 

Bad news met him on the way. William of Normandy 
with a large army had landed in England, near Hastings 
in Sussex. If Harold had listened to the advice of his 
friends, he would have put off meeting William until his 
own army was stronger, for he had lost many men at 
Stamford Bridge. But he was impatient and angry, and 
without waiting for reinforcements, set out for Hastings. 

The battle that followed (October 14th, 1066), was a 
sharp and bloody one, and was decided, after a long day 
•of fighting, in favor of the Normans. Harold was shot 
in the eye by an arrow, and after the moon rose that 
night, it looked on the dead bodies of the king, his two 
brothers, and many of the noblest men in England. It 
was a sad sight; and when Harold's corpse was dragged 
out the next day, from under a heap of the slain, the 
Conqueror, as we must now call William of Normandy, 
gave permission to his mother to take it away and bury it. 

This is properly called the battle of Senlac, that being 
the name of the place where it was fought, about nine 
miles from the town of Hastings, though the latter has 
given its name to the battle. On the spot where Harold 
was killed, William built a magnificent church called 
Battle Abbey. The ruins of this are in excellent preser- 
vation, and many travelers turn aside from the more 
beaten tracks to visit the scene of the battle of Hastings. 



44 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

England, though its king had fallen, was not yet con- 
quered. In fact, William did not wish to reign as a con- 
queror, but as a lawful king. His ambition was to be 
chosen by the people themselves. The death of Harold 
left but one claimant of the crown, Edgar the Atheling, 
grandson of Edmund Ironside, and this young man, if he 
had been like his grandfather or like the Conqueror, 
no doubt would have fought for his rights — and been 
conquered, as Harold was. A few of the English leaders 
still stood up for him; but there was disunion among 
them, and when the decision took place, Edgar himself 
was among those who offered the throne to the Con- 
queror. On Christmas day, 1066, William I. was crowned 
in Westminster Abbey, both Normans and Saxons taking 
part in the ceremonies. The Archbishop of Canterbury 
made an address to the English in their own language, 
asking if they would have William for their king. They 
shouted out, "Yes! Yes!" A Norman archbishop whom 
William had brought over with him asked his Normans 
the same question in French, and they were equally 
vehement. The soldiers standing outside, hearing the 
noise, imagined that the English were doing some vio- 
lence to their duke, and in their panic, set fire to the 
wooden houses near the Abbey, which burnt like tinder, 
and came near destroying the whole town. Such occur- 
rences did not help to increase good feeling between the 
English and Normans. 

William I. set out to be a sort of second Canute, and 
no doubt really meant to govern well, though strictly. 
But it was not long before the Saxons perceived that the 
best of everything was slipping out of their hands and 
falling into those of the conquerors. If an English gen- 



THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 45 

tleman had fought against William at Hastings, that was 
a reason for taking away all his property and giving it to 
some Norman favorite. Strong castles were built near 
the large towns (a part of the Tower of London dates 
from this time), and these were garrisoned by Normans, 
so that the English might be kept in order. The Nor- 
man barons who were set over the conquered people 
became tyrannical, and abused their power in such a way 
that the English, burning with indignation, only awaited 
a good opportunity to make themselves free again. 

The year after he was crowned, William I. made a visit 
to Normandy. The ill-feeling existing between Saxon 
and Norman broke out more fiercely than ever when the 
master's hand was withdrawn, and many Englishmen of 
rank, unable longer to endure the insolence of their for- 
eign lords, broke out into open rebellion. Plots were 
almost as plenty as towns, and William came back with- 
out delay. For some time he contented himself with 
moderate measures, inflicting punishment only in pro- 
portion to the wrong done; but losing patience at last, 
he took a cruel revenge. He sent a body of soldiers 
under a trained captain, to lay waste the country between 
the rivers Tees and Humber, a district sixty miles wide, 
and reaching as far inland as York. Over this whole 
extent nothing could be seen but burned towns, ruined 
fields, and desolate farm-houses. Most of the inhab- 
itants fled to Scotland; those who could not get away 
were killed without mercy. It is said that a hundred 
thousand persons perished in the famine that followed 
the destruction of crops, animals and farm-implements, 
and wild beasts made their lairs in what had once been 
smiling homes. Fifty years afterward, a writer who trav- 



46 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

eled there, groans over the dismal sight, and says it is 
piteous to see the change. 

After this there were no more attempts at rebellion on 
the part of the English, and no pretence of mildness and 
moderation on the side of William. The old inhabitants 
of the land were ruled with a rod of iron ; their new mas- 
ters grew daily more grasping and more arrogant. William 
could now go to Normandy and stay as long as it suited 
him, without fear that a hand would be raised against his 
authority. All offices were taken away from the unfor- 
tunate Saxons, and their finest estates were given to the 
king's Norman favorites, who built castles to protect their 
new property, while the original owners of the country 
sank almost to the condition of serfs.* 

In Normandy, William's oldest son, Robert, rebelled 
against him, and in a battle between them the king was 
unhorsed and might have been killed but that Robert 
recognized his father's voice. The prince, struck with 
horror, threw himself on his knees and begged forgive- 
ness; but William was too angry to be generous, and 
turned sullenly away. 

Three things were done in England by William's orders 
which enraged the Anglo Saxons, though it seems to us 
now that one of them was a positive benefit to the coun- 
try, while another was at least harmless. The first was 
causing a book to be prepared which contained a descrip- 
tion of all the land owned by private persons in the king- 
dom, with an account of its products. This is called the 
Domesday book. It still exists, and has been translated, 
into modern English. As there was no way of recording 

* A serf is a kind of slave who may be sold by his master with the 
land he lives on, but can not be removed from it. 



THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 47 

the ownership of property at that time, this was of real 
value; but the Saxons looked at it only as a means for 
getting more taxes out of them. 

The second regulation which offended our ancestors- 
was that at the ringing of a certain bell called the curfew,* 
at about nine o'clock in the evening, all lights and fires 
were to be put out. This was an old Norman custom, 
used as a protection against fire, and binding on Nor- 
mans and Saxons alike; but the English hated it because 
they thought it a sign of slavery. The population of Eng- 
land at this time is supposed to have been a million. 

The third cause of offence was a more serious one. 
William was extremely fond of hunting, and not finding 
any forest conveniently near to his own dwelling, he 
determined to make one for himself. He caused all the 
inhabitants in a tract of country in Hampshire, in the 
south of England, for the space of thirty miles, to be driven 
away from their homes so that the wild beasts might in- 
crease there. He tore down houses and churches, that 
the animals might not be frightened off, and paid nothing 
for what he thus took for his own pleasure. This hunt- 
ing-ground was called the "New Forest," and a part of it 
is still an appanage of the crown of England. A writer 
of the time says of him, "He loved the wild deer as if he 
were their father;" better than he loved his subjects, for 
while the killing of a deer or even a hare was punished 
by putting out the eyes of the offender, the killing of a man 
could be atoned for by paying a small sum of money. 

William's death took place in Normandy. The town 
of Mantes, in that country, had rebelled against him, and 

* From the French ' 'couvre-feu," "cover- fire." 



48 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

he had ordered it to be burned to the ground. In riding 
over it afterward to see whether his commands had been 
obeyed, his horse stepped on some hot embers and 
plunged so violently that the king was thrown on the 
pommel of his saddle, receiving injuries from which he 
died soon afterward. He was taken to a monastery near 
Rouen, and his two younger sons, William and Henry, 
came there to see him. Robert he did not wish to see, 
and his second son, Richard, had died by accident in 
the New Forest. As soon as the two brothers had found 
out what their father meant to leave them, they made 
haste to go to England and take possession, William of 
the crown, and Henry of five thousand pounds that had 
belonged to his mother, Matilda of Flanders; and the 
Conqueror was left to the care of his servants and the 
attendant priests. It is said that he regretted bitterly all 
his cruel deeds and needless bloodshed, and tried by gifts 
to the church and by releasing from prison some persons 
who had offended him, to pacify his conscience. The 
instant he died his servants took everything they could 
lay their hands on — even the ring from his finger and the 
sheets from his bed. Sheets were valuable things in those 
days, and the thieves were in such a hurry that the Con- 
queror's body rolled to the floor as they dragged the linen 
from under it. Some monks found it and laid it out 
decently; but it was not yet allowed to be carried to the 
grave in peace. William had built at Caen in Normandy 
two magnificent abbeys, one for himself and one for 
Queen Matilda, who died some years before him. When 
a grave had been prepared for him, and the coffin was 
about to be let down into it, a man suddenly appeared 
in the church and with a loud voice forbade the inter- 



THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 49 

merit. "The land this church was built on/' said he, 
"never belonged to the man you are going to bury here ! 
It was my father's, and was taken from him by force; 
now it is mine, and I refuse my permission to the burial!" 
The priests were struck with shame at this rude interrup- 
tion, and pacified the man by paying him sixty pence, 
after which he left them in peace. 

William continued in England, with little change, the 
state of things called "The Feudal System." The main 
idea of this was that all land really belonged to the king, 
although those who occupied it were allowed to call 
themselves the feudal owners of it, and that in return for 
this privilege each land-holder must be ready to go with 
the king to battle whenever he was called upon. In other 
words, the land-holder must give military service instead 
of rent or purchase-money. The same system was kept 
up through the many grades of rank, down to the poorest 
farmer or owner of a little garden-plot; he must go to 
war whenever he was called upon, so there was a great 
body of fighting men always ready for action. But when 
there was trouble in the country itself, those masses of 
soldiers were as able to fight against the king as on his 
side ; so that it was not always to his advantage. 

After the first rising against William the Conqueror in 
England, Edgar Atheling, the grandson of Edmund Iron- 
side, went with his two sisters to Scotland, where they 
were kindly received by its king, Malcolm, son of the 
Duncan who was murdered by Macbeth, as we read in 
Shakspeare's tragedy. Malcolm married the lovely Mar- 
garet, Edgar's elder sister, while the younger one, Chris- 
tina, became a nun. Edgar returned to England and 
died at a good old age, nearly forgotten by everybody. 
4 




50 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

CHAPTER VI. 

NORMAN ENGLAND. WILLIAM II. HENRY I. 

HE feelings of the English toward their Norman, 
conquerors may be best judged from their own 
writings. It should be borne in mind that every 
tax imposed by foreigners must have been odious to- 
them, and that the king could not know all the details of 
what was done by his officers. Here is one account : 

"The king sold out his lands as dear as dearest he 
might, and he cared not how iniquitously his sheriffs ex- 
torted money from the miserable people, nor how many 
unlawful things they did. They raised oppressive taxes, 
and so many were their unjust deeds it were hard to 
remember them." 

The English opinion of the Domesday Book may be 
gathered from another chronicle. "He caused them to 
write down what property every inhabitant of all England 
possessed in land or in cattle, and how much money this 
was worth. So very narrowly did he cause the survey to 
be made that there was not a single hide nor a rood of 
land, nor — it is shameful to relate that which he thought 
no shame to do — was there an ox, or a cow, or a pig 
passed by that was not set down in the accounts, and 
then all these writings were brought to him." 

There appears to have been no effort made by Robert, 
the Conqueror's oldest son, to take possession of the 
throne of England. His father had left it to his second 
son, William, commonly called Rufus on account of his 
red hair and beard, and Robert became Duke of Nor- 



NORMAN ENGLAND. WILLIAM II. HENRY I. 51 

mandy. Most of the Normans in England would have 
preferred the rule of Robert, who was open-handed, (that 
is to say, careless), hot-headed and rash; but the Con- 
queror had not willed it so, knowing how unfit he was to 
govern a mixed people like the English. William Rums 
easily persuaded the Saxons that he was going to be a 
very lamb in governing, so they made no objection to 
him; but it did not take them long to discover that he 
was more like a wolf. He made the taxes of the people 
almost intolerable, and cared nothing for the rights of 
any one. His character is summed up in one sentence 
by the historian : "he neither feared God nor regarded 
man." His temper was fierce and cruel; his character 
treacherous and grasping, and all his subjects, Norman 
as well as Saxon, were glad when death took him off after 
a reign of thirteen years. We read of him in the chronicle: 

"Through his avarice, he was ever vexing the people 
with armies and cruel taxes; for in his days all justice 
sank and all unrighteousness arose. In fine, however 
long I may delay mention of it, all that was abominable 
to God and oppressive to man was common on this island 
in William's time and therefore he was hated by almost 
all his people." 

It was not long after William II. was made king that 
he and his brothers fell out with one another. First he 
invaded Robert's country of Normandy; then these two 
made friends and both attacked Prince Henry, their 
younger brother, who had taken a castle belonging to 
Robert on St. Michael's Mount in Normandy. They 
besieged him there until he was so hard pressed that not 
only his army but he himself was suffering from want of 
food. On hearing this, Robert sent him supplies of meat 



52 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and wine from his own table; and when William blamed 
him for this he answered, "Shall we let our brother die 
of hunger? Where shall we get another when he is gone?" 

Prince Henry was soon obliged to give up, and wan- 
dered about for some years, very poor and disconsolate. 
William went back to England and was soon more hated 
than ever. One of his ways of getting money unlawfully 
was through the church. At the death of any person 
holding an ecclesiastical office, the income belonging to 
the place went by law to the king as long as it was vacant. 
On the death of Lanfranc, a learned and excellent man 
whom William I. had made Archbishop of Canterbury 
(in place of the Saxon prelate turned out for the purpose), 
William II. (Rufus) refused to appoint another, and so 
kept the English church without a head for five years. 
Then being taken ill and fearing that he should die, he 
sent in great haste for St. Anselm, (as he was afterward 
called on account of his holiness), and insisted on mak- 
ing him archbishop against his will. When the king 
recovered he went back to his old habits, indulging in 
every kind of vice and setting himself against everything 
that was good. Anselm bore the king's misconduct as 
long as he could and then left the country, and William 
had from that time no check on his wickedness. The 
spirit of his dealings may be judged from his answer 
when the archbishop remonstrated with him on his hab- 
itually breaking his word. The king asked in a rage: 
"Who can do all he promises?" 

One good thing remains for which England is indebted 
to William II. The beautiful Westminster Hall in Lon- 
don, one of the grandest single rooms in the world, was 
built in his reign. 



NORMAN ENGLAND. WILLIAM II. HENRY I. 53 

It was during this reign that the first crusade was un- 
dertaken.* Robert of Normandy wished to go on this 
crusade but had no money, and as William could always 
get money by force or fraud, he agreed to furnish Robert 
with what he needed. In return Robert mortgaged his 
duchy of Normandy to William; that is, allowed him to 
take possession of it, with the understanding that after 
five years it should belong to William, if Robert had not 
paid back the money. The king took possession accord- 
ingly, but before the five years were up he was dead, and 
had no more use for land or money. 

William Rufus was extravagantly fond of hunting, like 
his father, and went out one morning with a party of his 
friends into the New Forest, to have a day's pleasure. 
During the day he became separated from most of his 
party, and that night a poor charcoal-burner, driving his 
cart slowly through the forest, found the body of the Red 
King with an arrow in the heart. Sir Walter Tyrrel, the 
friend who was last seen with him, ran away to France 
without waiting to tell what he knew about it; but after- 
ward he said that he had shot an arrow at a deer, and 
that it struck a tree and then glanced off and killed the 
king. Many persons disbelieved this story, but there 
was no proof that Sir Walter had not told the truth. 

Nobody pretended to be sorry for William's death. 
His life had been so mean, base, and selfish that it was a 
relief to know that he could tyrannize no more. He was 
never married, and the next king would naturally be one 
of his brothers. 

* A crusade was a military expedition, the object of which was to 
take the city of Jerusalem, with the tomb of Christ, from the Mo- 
hammedans. 



54 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Robert, the older of these, of course had the best 
right; (that is, provided the English people wanted him, 
for they still went through the form of electing their kings) 
but Robert was on his way from the Holy Land, and 
Henry, the younger brother, was on the spot. Robert 
came back in a few weeks, to find his brother acknowl- 
edged as king beyond all question. He was angry at 
this; but they met together and were reconciled, the elder 
resigning all his right to the throne of England, and prom- 
ising to be content with his own duchy of Normandy. 

Henry was a wise and far-sighted man. He knew that 
the only way to keep his people in good humor was to 
govern them justly, so he gave them a charter, that is, a 
written paper declaring what their rights were, and prom- 
ised to rule according to law. He showed his wisdom 
further by marrying Matilda, the niece of Edgar Atheling 
and daughter of that queen who was so good that she 
received after her death the title of St. Margaret of Scot- 
land. The children of this marriage would thus be half 
Saxon and half Norman, and there could never be any 
more quarreling between the two races. 

Henry I. was the first of the Norman kings who had 
much more education than enough to write their names. 
He had been fairly well instructed and was fond of study, 
so he went by the name of "Beauclerc," or " Fine-Scholar, " 
by which he is called to this day. 

Although the political rights of the English were in a 
manner assured to them by Henry I.'s charter, they were 
none the less heavily taxed. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 
says of one period, "Full heavy a year was this. He 
who had any property was bereaved of it by heavy taxea 
and assessments, and he who had none starved with 



NORMAN ENGLAND. WILLIAM II HENRY I. 55 

hunger." The taxes, however, were no longer regarded 
as being imposed by the victors on the vanquished. 
Norman and Englishman came under the same law, and 
for all practical purposes the two nations were now fused 
into one. Socially, the Normans still despised the Sax- 
ons, and considered Henry's marriage with Matilda, 
{who, out of respect to their prejudices, took that name 
on her marriage in place of her own Saxon name of 
Edith), as beneath the dignity of a Norman king. 

Henry treated his brother Robert very harshly. He 
was always jealous of him, and finding that the Norman 
"barons, weary of Robert's misrule, were inclined to a 
change, he went to Normandy with a large army and fought 
the battle of Tinchebrai, where Robert was defeated and 
taken prisoner. Henry carried his brother to England 
and finally shut him up in Cardiff Castle in Wales, where 
he dragged out twenty-eight miserable years before death 
set him free. A story that Henry had his brother's 
eyes put out rests upon some authority; but we prefer to 
think it a fiction of the chroniclers. 

It is toward the end of Henry's reign that we first read 
of Oxford as a place where regular instruction was given 
{1133). In early times it was called "Oxenford" (see 
Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales). From the 
twelfth century onward, new halls for study were founded, 
and learned men were attracted to the town as to a liter- 
ary centre. The tradition which connects the present 
university with King Alfred, rests only upon the fact that 
he founded schools somewhere, and that as early as the 
reign of Edward the Elder, (901-925), Oxford had be- 
come a place of importance. 




56 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE WHITE SHIP. DEATH OF HENRY I. STEPHEN. 

ENRY I. now had apparently all that this world 
could give him. His power was unquestioned, 
his country was rigorously kept quiet, and his 
domestic affairs were prosperous. The great misfortune 
of his life came upon him like a clap of thunder from a 
clear sky. 

He had been in France with his only son, William, 
celebrating the prince's marriage to a daughter of the 
Count of Anjou. A splendid wedding party was in at- 
tendance, and all were in the highest spirits. It was 
found convenient, in going back from Normandy to Eng- 
land, for the royal party to sail in different vessels, as the 
ships of that time were small and ill-fitted to carry 
many people at once. The king sailed first, leaving the 
prince to follow in a beautiful new ship called the 
"Blanche Nef," or White Ship, offered by the owner for 
that purpose. "I had the honor of carrying over your 
father when he went to the conquest of England," said 
this man; "I pray you to use my new ship for your jour- 
ney." The king answered that his own arrangements 
were made, but that his son would accept the offer with 
pleasure. The ship was crowded as full as it could hold. 
There were fifty "sailors of renown," as the captain called 
them, and a hundred and forty of the prince's company, 
including many high-born ladies, who had gone from 
England to the wedding. "Give the men three casks of 
wine," cried the prince, who had been drinking a great 



DEATH OF HENRY I. STEPHEN. 57 



deal of wine himself; "let us all be merry together." Off 
they went; the sailors got drunk, and the ship had 
scarcely left the harbor when she struck on a rock with 
such force that it was seen instantly that she must sink. 
The captain hurried the prince with a few companions 
into a boat, ordering the men to row for their lives to 
the shore, which they could easily have reached. But 
among the ladies left on board to drown was the Countess 
Marie, a sister of Prince William; and he, hearing her 
piteous cries for help, insisted on going back to the ship 
to save her. Upon this, so many persons crowded into 
the boat that it sank, and the ship went down at the same 
moment. Of all that great company, but one escaped 
death; a poor butcher of Rouen who told the story. He 
was saved by clinging to a mast, and said that the cap- 
tain might also have reached the shore but that on hear- 
ing of the prince's death he let go, and crying out, "Woe 
is me!" sank to the bottom like a stone. 

For several days no one dared to carry the tidings to 
the king. At last a young boy was sent into his presence, 
and, falling at his feet in tears and trembling, told his 
story. The king fell down in a fainting-fit, and was never 
again seen to smile. 

The little bride, who was only twelve years old, had 
come to England with her father-in-law, and was there- 
fore safe. The Count of Anjou sent for his daughter and 
her dowry; the young girl was sent back, and afterward 
became a nun, but Henry took care to keep the dowry. 

Henry now began to be anxious about an heir to the 
crown. He had several nephews, but was not very fond 
of them; and his oldest daughter, Matilda, married to 
the emperor Henry V. of Germany, had no children. 



5S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

The emperor lived but a short time after the marriage, 
and Matilda was, with much difficulty, persuaded to marry 
Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou. Two years be- 
fore the death of Henry I. they had a son, named Henry 
after his grandfather, and called by the English Henry 
Fitz-Empress, as Matilda always kept the higher title of 
empress, even after marrying a count. The birth of this 
child delighted the old king, who felt that he in a manner 
took the place of the lost Prince William, and he caused 
his barons to swear fidelity to his daughter Maud, (a name 
for Matilda), hoping that she would be queen after his 
death. He might have lived longer but that he persisted 
in eating too largely of a dish of stewed lampreys, a kind 
of rich fish against which his physicians had warned him. 
He was not well at the time, and died from the effects of 
his imprudent meal. 

Henry I. had great faults; he was self-willed, avari- 
cious, deceitful, and, when it suited his purpose to be so. 
cruel, as was shown by his treatment of his brother 
Robert. He kept up the forest laws (game laws we 
should now call them) in their utmost severity, and was 
altogether a hard master. Yet, as he had undoubtedly 
great abilities, and was, according to the standard of the 
time, a just ruler, (for he allowed no crime to go un- 
punished in others), the English long clung to his memory 
with a certain fondness. 

There were some things in Henry's time which showed 
that a gradual change was taking place in England. For 
instance, men were no longer obliged to undergo the 
"ordeal of battle," if they did not choose to do so. This 
was a Norman custom which was meant to take the place 
of the Saxon hot-iron trial. When two men had a quarrel 



DEATH OF HENRY I. STEPHEN. 59 

either could insist on fighting it out with certain forms 
and ceremonies, and the victor was supposed to have 
right on his side. 

We notice also the growing power of the Church in 
controlling men's actions. When Henry was about to 
fight his last battle with his brother Robert, in Normandy, 
■a bishop, making an address to him in the presence of 
Tiis soldiers, exhorted him not to follow the example of 
Robert, who was " abandoned to sloth and folly,'' but to 
testify against the abominations of the times, especially 
long hair and peaked-toed shoes. These latter were then 
made so absurdly long that the points were drawn up 
and fastened at the knee. As Henry professed his will- 
ingness to help along in the good work of reform, the 
zealous bishop seized a pair of shears and cut off the 
king's flowing locks. Then the greatest dandy of the 
court asked that his head might be operated upon; and 
after that the scissors were kept busy until all the fine 
gentlemen became a set of Roundheads. The efficacy 
of this sacrifice is proved by the fact that Henry won 
•the battle. 

Henry I. died in Normandy, and no sooner did the 
news of his death reach England than robbery and law- 
lessness ran riot through the country, and trade was 
brought to a stand-still. The Empress Maud, Henry's 
•daughter, was away taking care of her husband, who was 
ill; so that the way was open for a usurpation. Just then 
Stephen, Earl of Blois, son of the Conqueror's daughter 
Adela and nephew to the late king, suddenly appeared 
in London with an army, and by promises and a liberal 
scattering about of Henry's money, of which he managed 
to get possession, induced the "Witan" to choose him 



60 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

king. Stephen was going to do great things. He would 
abolish the odious "Danegelt," which was still kept up; 
he would give up the new forests made by Henry I. and 
he would secure justice to every citizen. None of his 
promises were kept, but this was not altogether his fault. 
He was an amiable, well-meaning man, with pleasant 
manners and a ready smile, and would have been quite 
willing that every man in his dominions should have 
peace, prosperity and justice, if he could have bestowed 
these blessings; but he lacked force of character. Other 
men, stronger and fiercer than he, took things into their 
own hands, and poor England had not, since the time of 
the Danish invasions, had so bitter a period as his reign 
proved to be. To conciliate the favor of the Norman 
barons he allowed them to fortify their castles, which soon 
became mere dens of robbers ; for it was not the habit 
of these "noblemen" to provide for themselves except 
by stealing from their neighbors. Here is a passage from 
the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," giving a Saxon account of 
what was endured in his reign by those suspected of 
owning anything that could be taken away from them: 

When the traitors perceived that King Stephen was a mild man, 

and a soft and a good they no faith kept; every rich man kept his. 

castles and defended them. They greatly oppressed the wretched 
people by making them work at these castles, and when the castles, 
were finished they filled them with devils. They took those whom 
they suspected to have any goods and put them in prison, and tor- 
tured them with pains unspeakable. They hung some up by their 
feet and tortured them with foul smoke ; some by the thumbs or by 
the head, and they hung burning things on their feet. They put a 
knotted string about their heads, and twisted it till it went into the- 
brain. Some they put into a crucet-house, that is, into a chest that 
was short and narrow, and not deep, and they put sharp stones in 
it, and crushed the man therein so that they broke all his limbs. 



DEATH OF HENRY I. STEPHEN. 61 

Other " hateful and grim things" are described, all 
having for their object the same thing, namely, forcing 
people, by the infliction of bodily pain, to tell where they 
had hidden anything of value. 

In the face of horrors like these we almost forget to be 
shocked at the commonplace fighting which went on, 
year after year, between Matilda's army and her cousin's. 
One great battle was fought in her behalf by King David 
of Scotland, who was her mother's brother. It was called 
"The Battle of the Standard" from the consecrated ban- 
ners, taken from different monasteries, which floated 
from a tall pole carried in the midst of the English army 
instead of an ordinary flag. David was defeated, and 
came near being made prisoner. On the other hand, 
Stephen was. captured in battle and loaded with chains; 
then Matilda's chief supporter, Robert of Gloucester, fell 
into the hands of the enemy and was exchanged by them 
for Stephen. Twice Matilda herself was taken prisoner. 
Once the king generously set her free and furnished her 
with an escort to her own party; the next time she was 
indebted to her own ingenuity or that of her friends for 
her escape. She was shut up by the besieging army in 
the castle of Oxford; and seeing no hope of relief she 
caused herself and three of her knights, all dressed in 
white, to be let down over the castle wall. It was in the 
depth of winter and the ground was covered with snow. 
The river Thames was frozen over, and the party crept 
along for six miles, strange to relate, without being dis- 
covered. They were almost frozen when they reached 
a place of safety. The castle and city surrendered to 
the king's forces the next day. 

And so the wretched business went on. The land was 



62 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

left untilled, the cattle died from lack of food, and a fam- 
ine followed among the people. All over the land, no- 
sight was more common than that of blazing villages and 
farm-houses; no sound more frequent than the despair- 
ing wail of people hunted from their homes. Young 
Prince Henry, Matilda's son, in the mean time, was grow- 
ing up to be a man. When things got to their worst, 
and the people could bear no more, an agreement was 
made between him and Stephen that the latter should 
remain king as long as he lived, and that Henry should 
then peaceably take the throne. Stephen's son, Eustace, 
a young man of such violent passions that he seemed 
almost insane, was made so angry by the treaty that it 
brought on a brain fever of which he died, to the great 
relief of the English, who had foreseen in his father's 
death only an endless vista of civil war. Stephen did 
not live long after this, but died in 1 154 after a disastrous- 
reign of nineteen years. 

The part of his conduct that it is least possible to de- 
fend was the fact that he had sworn to uphold the right 
of his cousin Matilda; and perjury was as much a sin in 
the twelfth century as it is in the nineteenth. His reign 
was a period of unspeakable misery to the English; but 
it is doubtful, under the circumstances, if there could 
have been anything but misfortune. It was not the time 
for the rule of a woman, even a judicious one; and the- 
Empress Maud was haughty and revengeful, and never 
seems to have gained the love of the people. 

Our old acquaintance, the Saxon Chronicle, comes 
to an abrupt end at Stephen's death. It had said its 
say; and there were others to take up the history of 
their country. The monk William of Malmesbury, who- 



DEATH OF HENRY 1. STEPHEN. 63 

lived in this century, gives us some interesting accounts 
of things as he saw them, and Henry of Huntington, 
another monkish historian, flourished at about the same 
time. Geoffrey of Monmouth, who died in the same year 
with King Stephen, professed to write a history of Britain, 
but it is so full of absurd fables that we can not tell the 
false from the true. King Arthur, the last Briton who 
stood out against the Saxons, is his favorite hero. 

And now we have done with the Norman kings; men 
of great talents, and, with the exception of Stephen, of 
strong characters. They came as usurpers, but the bene- 
fits they conferred upon England by introducing there a 
higher form of civilization than was known among the 
Saxons, can hardly be overrated. 

We have had, also, the last invasion of England. Rom- 
ans, Saxons, Danes, Normans, in turn conquered and 
occupied the land, and we have the best of what each 
nation left. Norman, Dane and Saxon, together with a 
little addition of British blood, have combined to form 
the modern Englishman, and we are English, with some 
admixture from every civilized nation upon earth. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE FIRST PLANTAGENET. 



N the days when men went to battle with the 
visors of their helmets down, so that no one 
could see their faces, it was convenient to have 
some special mark about them which should distinguish 




64 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

one from another. Geoffrey of An j oil, who married the 
Empress Maud, daughter of Henry I. of England, chose 
to wear a sprig of broom-plant {planta genista} in his hat, 
so he was known as Geoffrey Plantagenet. His son, 
Henry II. of England, kept the name, and for more than 
three hundred years Plantagenet kings sat on the throne 
of England. 

There was no need of an election by the Witan (which 
we must now call the Parliament) to enthrone Henry 
Plantagenet. He was welcomed by every one. Being 
half Saxon and half Norman, the quarrels of a hundred 
years were ended in him. Normandy, Anjou, and sev- 
eral other countries were his by inheritance, and he mar- 
ried Eleanor of Aquitaine, the divorced wife of Louis 
VII. of France, who brought him the rich countries of 
Guienne and Poitou, besides some smaller ones. Seldom 
has a young man of twenty-one stepped at once into such 
possessions. Henry was a very different person, in appear- 
ance, from the smooth, courteous, handsome Stephen. 
He was rough-looking, red-faced, bull-necked, and very 
strong and determined. He found in England much to 
do and much to undo. He began by sending away the 
foreign soldiers brought over by Stephen, and who had 
been living on the fat of the land while Englishmen were 
starving; he pulled down the castles which had sheltered 
licensed thieves and murderers, and he took back, from 
those to whom both Matilda and Stephen had given it 
unlawfully, much public property. He caused the laws 
to be respected, and justice done to everyone, rich or 
poor. A writer of his time says, "He did not sit still in 
his palace, as most kings do; he went about and saw 
things for himself." He knew, also, how to choose fit 



THE FIRST PLAN TA GENE 7\ 65 

helpers; and this brings us to the name of one of the 
most remarkable men of any age — Thomas a Becket. 

Before we go farther into sober history you ought to 
hear a pretty story about the mother of Becket. It may 
not be true, but even if it is not, it is a charming little 
romance.* 

Gilbert a Becket, the father of Thomas, was an Eng- 
lishman who went to the Holy Land either on a crusade 
or a pilgrimage, and was taken prisoner by a Saracen. 
His master treated him kindly, and even allowed him 
some intercourse with his family. The Saracen had a 
young daughter who was much interested in the English 
captive, and they grew very fond of one another. After 
& while, Becket had a chance to escape, and did so, with 
his servant, Richard, without any further thought of the 
Saracen maiden. He went back to England, and be- 
came a prosperous London merchant. 

But the young girl was not so easily satisfied. She 
had learned from Becket just two words of English — 
"London" and "Gilbert." Being determined to find her 
lover, she stole away secretly from her father's house; 
and with these two words, and some jewels to pay her 
passage, she made her way to London. On arriving there 
she wandered about the streets calling out in her soft, 
sweet voice, "Gilbert!" "Gilbert!" London was not so 
large then as it is now, and it happened that Richard, 
who was still Becket's servant, saw her and took her to 
his master. Fortunately, Gilbert was not married; and 
as soon as the faithful Saracen could be baptized she 
received the Christian name of Matilda instead of the 



* Pronounce this word romance, with the accent on the second 

syllable. 



66 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



heathen one she had borne before, and he made her his- 
wife. Such is the story, told by a writer living in Eng- 
land at that time. 

Thomas a Becket, the son of Gilbert, after receiving a 
good English education, studied law at the great univer- 
sity of Paris, and there, it is said, got rid of the Saxon 
accent which had clung to him until then and prevented 
his being quite the fine gentleman. When he went home 
to England he took his place at once as a thorough man 
of the world; for, though belonging to the clergy, it was 
not necessary for him on that account to devote himself 
especially to religion. He was gay, brilliant and popular, 
and a brave soldier. The king, who was very fond of 
him, promoted him from one position to another until he 
reached the highest — that of chancellor. He was con- 
siderably older than Henry, but the king treated him as- 
a companion, sometimes indulging in what we should call 
pretty rough jokes. One day they were riding along 
together when they met a miserable beggar, scantily 
clothed. "Look at that poor wretch," said the king. 
"Don't you think it would be a good idea to give him a. 
warm cloak?" "Certainly," said the dignified chancellor; 
"it is a kind thought, and I hope you will carry it out." 
"Well," answered the king, "suppose we give him yours;" 
so he seized Becket's rich scarlet cloak, trimmed with 
ermine, and tried to drag it off. The chancellor held 
fast to it, until at last the clasp snapped and Henry flung 
the cloak to the beggar, who was probably the most sur- 
prised man of the company. 

Thomas a Becket had inherited a great deal of money 
from his father, and he spent it in a princely manner. 
His table was spread every day for as many guests as 



THE FIRST PLANTA GENET. 67 

could sit at it, and when there were more than could find 
places there, they sat on the floor, which was covered 
thickly with rushes in summer and straw in winter. It 
was thought a proof of the unbounded luxury in which 
the chancellor lived that the rushes and straw on his floor 
were laid down fresh every day, (this was out of respect 
to the courtiers' fine clothes) while common people did 
not have their rushes changed more than once a week. 
At all houses, rich or poor, the bones and other remnants 
of food were thrown on the floor, during the meal or after 
it, to be scrambled for by the dogs. 

It will help to give us an idea of these feasts, where wine 
was served in golden goblets and meat on silver dishes, 
to know that forks were not in use at table, nor were 
knives a part of the table furniture. Each person carried 
his own pocket-knife, and cut from the main dishes such 
pieces as he desired, and instead of forks they used their 
fingers. 

On some occasion King Henry wished to send an 
ambassador to France, and Becket, being the most splen- 
did person in the kingdom, was naturally chosen to go. 
He thought he would do honor to the situation, and trav- 
eled, if we may believe Fitz Stephen, his admiring friend 
and biographer, with a retinue of nearly a thousand per- 
sons. When he went into a town, two hundred and fifty 
singing boys heralded his approach; a long train of wag- 
ons followed, each drawn by five horses, with a driver to 
each horse. After these came twelve horses carrying 
smaller articles, each with a monkey on his back. Two 
of the wagons carried ale, to be given out to the people 
as they passed along; others contained the gold and 
silver vessels used at the chancellor's table, and the rest 



68 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

bore the various garments in which his servants were to 
appear. After these came a train of ladies and gentle- 
men, soldiers and attendants, all splendidly dressed and 
equipped, and finally Becket himself, in superb array. 
After making all due allowance for exaggeration, it must 
have been a magnificent procession. 

A great change was now to take place. The king had 
certain plans which he wished Becket's help in carrying 
out; and he thought the best way to do this would be to 
make him Archbishop of Canterbury. Becket was 
strongly opposed to this; he shrank from the responsi- 
bility, and said plainly to the king, in effect, "You will 
be disappointed in me. We shall certainly quarrel, for 
you claim rights as king which I, as archbishop, can 
not allow." But Henry was not used to being disap- 
pointed, and insisted on having his own way. Becket 
immediately laid down all his splendors, wore sack-cloth 
and a hair-shirt, scourged himself, lived on bread and 
water, and practised every form of self-denial which is 
supposed to elevate the soul by mortifying the body. 
He daily washed the feet of thirteen beggars to prove his 
humility, and wept over and lamented his sins like any 
common penitent. So far his conduct concerned only 
himself and the friends who had assembled round his 
table in the days of his magnificence; but when he re- 
signed the chancellorship in order to devote himself to his 
spiritual duties, the king was seriously offended. There 
was never any real cordiality between them afterward. 

During the hundreds of years in which the clergy 
(which included all monks, as well as priests and bishops) 
had been increasing in power and importance, many of 
them had become exceedingly corrupt, and led very bad 



THE SIRST PL A NT A GENET. 69 



lives. It had grown to be a practice in the church that 
when one of these persons committed a crime he should 
be judged only by the clergy themselves, (who might let 
him off with some slight punishment) and not by the law 
of the land. Henry saw that this was not right, and 
declared that all persons should be treated alike and tried 
in the regular courts. After a great deal of angry dis- 
puting, a council was called at Clarendon at which both 
sides were represented, and a paper called the "Consti- 
tutions of Clarendon" was drawn up accepting the king's 
decision, which most of the clergy, the archbishop among 
the rest, swore to observe. 

Becket, who had consented to the Constitutions sorely 
against his will, soon obtained permission from the Pope 
to break his oath. He did not think it prudent to remain 
in England, but went to France, where he was received 
with great kindness by the king of that country. After 
six years of self-imposed banishment, some friends made 
peace between him and Henry, and he returned home, 
Henry asking him the first time they met, whether he 
had gone away because he thought England was too 
small to contain them both. 

The archbishop, however, was not altered by absence. 
He was an old man now, but his spirit was unbroken, and 
he showed the same determination as ever. He had 
made up his mind that the Church should be the greatest 
power in England, and the king was equally resolved that 
the Law should rule. Enraged by the archbishop's con- 
tinued encroachments, Henry once exclaimed, "Is there 
no one who will rid me of this insolent priest?" Four 
Norman knights who heard the angry words spoken left 
the king's presence without telling him of their intention, 



70 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

crossed the sea (for Henry was then in Normandy), and 
rode with all speed to Canterbury. There they had a 
stormy interview with the archbishop, desiring him to 
take off the excommunication from one of their own 
friends, who had plundered the church in Becket's ab- 
sence, but this he steadily refused. At the usual hour he 
went into the cathedral to perform the vesper service. 
He had been warned that the knights meant to kill him, 
but he scorned to take any measures for his own defence. 
The ruffians then came into the church and struck at him 
and hacked him with their swords, until they left him 
dead on the cathedral floor. In Canterbury Cathedral 
is still shown the place where the cowardly act was done. 
Henry was horror-struck at hearing of the foul deed, 
for, angry as he was, he had not expected to be taken at 
his word. His first care was to be reconciled with the 
Pope, and to give up everything that he had been fight- 
ing for. He actually annulled the "Constitutions of 
Clarendon" and thus undid a measure that it had been 
the object of his life to accomplish — a proceeding which 
necessarily diminishes our respect for him. 

The next event of importance in English history is the 
conquest of Ireland. This country had before been in- 
dependent, ruled over by five so-called "kings" who were 
always at war with one another, and did not mind slicing 
off noses, digging out eyes or tearing out tongues any 
more than we mind killing vermin. Ireland was nomi- 
nally Christian, having been converted by St. Patrick in 
the fifth and St. Columba in the sixth century; and for a 
long time the Irish monasteries were the centres of learn- 
ing and piety. Ireland was called "The Isle of Saints 
and Scholars." But the people had gradually fallen back 



THE FIRST PLANTA GENET. 71 

into a state of barbarism, and their continual quarreling 
among themselves prevented them from making any 
improvement. 

Henry had received, some years before, permission 
from the Pope to conquer this island, for the pontiffs in 
those days assumed the right to dispose of all the coun- 
tries of the earth; but hitherto there had been no con- 
venient time for it. Now the old story of history repeated 
itself. One of the kings asked for help against another, 
and Richard de Clare (called Strongbow) went over with 
a band of soldiers, conquered the opposing army, married 
the king's daughter Eva, and made himself master of the 
king's dominions. These he was not allowed to keep, 
but Henry, having subdued the rest of the country, 
granted Strongbow a large estate there, while retaining 
for himself the title of king. Since that time (1172) Ire- 
land has belonged to England, and a very troublesome 
piece of property it has proved to the English, who have 
not yet seen the last of the perplexities brought on them 
by the ambition of Henry II. 

Henry's declining years were far from peaceful. His 
sons all rebelled against him, with the connivance of their 
mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who seems to have had a 
genius for making mischief. The king of France, Louis 
"VII. also took part with the sons. Prince Henry died 
of a fever and Geoffrey had his brains dashed out at a 
tournament, leaving only Richard and John to continue 
the war against their father. Some of Henry's subjects 
joined the rebels, and William the Lion, king of Scot- 
land, entered into the alliance against him. As these 
things were considered a judgment on the king for Beck- 
et's murder, he resolved do public penance for it. With 



72 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

his usual quickness, (respecting which Louis VII. of 
France said, "The King of England does not sail nor 
ride; he flies, like a bird!"), Henry went quickly to Can- 
terbury and, dismounting as soon as he came in sight of 
the old towers, walked barefoot to the cathedral. There 
he remained all night in prayer, causing himself to be 
scourged by eighty monks, each of whom gave him a blow 
as he passed. When he returned to London the first 
news that met him was that William the Lion, king of 
Scotland, had been taken prisoner in battle, with a large 
part of his army. The archbishop had already been 
made a saint by the Pope, and for hundreds of years his 
tomb at Canterbury was the resort of pilgrims, while his 
shrine vied with the most famous in Europe in regard to 
the miracles said to be wrought there. 

By the time King Henry was fifty-six years old he was 
quite worn out with anxiety and unhappiness. His re- 
maining sons were again in rebellion, helped by Philip 
Augustus of France, who had succeeded the weak Louis 
VI L; and Henry, in desperation, signed a treaty granting 
whatever was asked of him. So much agitation brought 
on a fever, and in the midst of it a paper was brought to 
him to sign, by which he agreed to pardon all those of 
his own subjects who had been in rebellion. He com- 
manded that the list of names should be read aloud to 
him, and the first one that he heard was that of his 
youngest and favorite son, "John, Duke of Mortagne." 

It was the last drop of bitterness in the king's cup, and 
it filled it over-full. He would hear no more ; he cursed 
the day of his birth, he cursed his rebellious sons with a 
fury that nothing could induce him to alter, and then he 
turned his face to the wall muttering, "Let things go as 



THE FIRST PL A NT A GENET 73 

they will;" and so died — a disappointed, heart-broken 
man. In spite of great faults and weaknesses, Henry 
had been a good king for England. He was in advance 
j of his age in his ideas about the rights of kings (of the 
rights of "the people" nobody had then any notion), but 
his doctrine that the rulers of a country should manage its 
affairs without interference from foreigners, is one which 
has since become a part of the law of nations. 

The main writers in Henry II.'s time were Fitz Stephen, 
who wrote the life of Thomas a Becket, the historians Ger- 
ald of Cambridge, Roger of Hoveden and Walter Map; 
and Wace, a Norman poet who wrote histories in verse. 




CHAPTER IX. 

RICHARD I. AND THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

HERE has been a great deal of sentimental non- 
sense talked and written about Richard Cceur 
de Lion (in English, Richard the Lion-hearted) 
but the plain truth is that he was, in the general plan of 
his life, as selfish a man as ever misruled the English 
people. He was brave in battle; so were thousands of 
others; he could be generous when it would make a show 
and gain him credit; but he began his career by an un- 
natural rebellion against his father, without a shadow of 
excuse for it, and he continued through most of his life 
to do the things which were for his own pleasure and 
glory, and to neglect his plain duty, which was to take 
care of his kingdom of England. 



74 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



One person, at least, had reason to be glad of Rich 
ard's accession — his mother, Queen Eleanor, whom 
Henry had kept shut up in her palace for sixteen years, 
on account of her encouraging the rebellion of her sons 
and trying to escape with them to France. We can 
scarcely blame him for wishing to put her where she 
could do no more harm, but she had her own wrongs to 
complain of. He openly showed that he preferred an 
other woman, Rosamond Clifford, called Fair Rosamond 
to the queen; so they were a very unhappy couple. A 
romantic story is told about this Rosamond, to the effect 
that the queen suddenly appeared before her with a dag 
ger in one hand and a cup of poison in the other, and 
asked her which she would choose. According to the 
story, Rosamond chose the poison, and drank it then and 
there, under the queen's eyes; but the real Rosamond in 
real history became a nun, and spent her life after the 
king left her, in the convent of Godston, where the sis- 
ters were very fond of her. 

To return to King Richard. No sooner was he in his 
father's place than he discovered that rebellion was a 
very wicked thing, and immediately punished the persons 
who had taken his part against his father. Then he was 
crowned with great splendor; for Henry had left an im- 
mense sum of money in the royal treasury, and Richard 
could indulge his taste for display. A horrible incident 
attended his coronation at Westminster. Certain Jews, 
who as a nation had been forbidden to come to it, ven- 
tured in, bearing large gifts, which they thought would 
make them welcome. Richard received the gifts willingly 
enough, but some of the people, to show their hatred and 
spite against all Jews, drove them out with abusive Ian- 



RICHARD I AND THE THIRD CRUSADE. 75 

guage and pelted them with sticks and stones. Upon 
seeing this, others spread the report that the king had 
ordered the Jews to be killed, and a general massacre of 
those unfortunate people took place. The frantic multi- 
tude not only attacked those they met out of doors, but 
burst into their houses, stabbing men, women, and chil- 
dren, or throwing them out of the windows into the street, 
where they were soon dispatched by the infuriated crowd. 
•Only three men concerned in these brutal outrages were 
punished, and these, not for what they had done to the 
Jews, but because in the confusion they had set fire to 
the houses of some Christians. 

The contagion of lawlessness soon spread to other 
-cities, where the wretched Israelites were murdered by 
hundreds. At York, after terrible cruelties had been 
•committed against them, some five hundred of them took 
possession of the castle in the absence of the governor, 
and tried to defend themselves there. A mob of citizens 
battered at the gates for two or three days, and at last 
the Jews found it useless to keep up the attempt. After 
destroying, as far as they could, their jewels and other 
•valuables, the greater part of them agreed to die by their 
•own hands. They killed their wives and children, and 
then, having set fire everywhere to the castle, stabbed 
themselves. A few cowering wretches, hiding away as well 
as they could from the flames, were found by the assail- 
ants when they succeeded in breaking down the gates, and 
•on these they wreaked their vengeance; but the greater 
part of their victims were already blackened corpses. 

None of these things moved Richard, nor did he make 
any effort toward checking the hideous deeds of his sub- 
jects. He was busy preparing for a crusade. The Holy 



76 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Sepulchre (and of course the city of Jerusalem) had been 
conquered again by the Mohammedans after the Chris- 
tians had held it for eighty-seven years, and the warriors of 
Europe were going to the Holy Land to try to get it back 
again. This was the third crusade, a second one having 
been undertaken about forty years before, for the purpose 
of taking some Turkish cities in Palestine. All these 
undertakings required enormous sums of money; and 
Richard, besides using up the vast treasure left by his 
father, obtained much more, some of it by dishonorable 
means, some by merciless extortion. "I would sell Lon- 
don," he exclaimed, "if I could find a bidder." 

Philip Augustus of France joined him at Messina, in 
Sicily, and here Richard was also met by his promised 
wife, Berengaria of Navarre, who presented herself under 
his mother's escort. As it was then the season of Lent, 
the Catholic church would not allow of their marrying, 
and the fleets set off for Palestine. When they drew earn 
the island of Cyprus, a violent storm obliged some of the 
English vessels to seek for shelter in one of its harbors. 
This was rudely refused by Isaac Comnenus, the king of 
the island; so Richard must stop to fight him before going 
on with his crusading business, and had the satisfaction 
of making him prisoner and taking possession of the 
island, which he left some of his soldiers to guard. The 
foolish old king was put in silver chains, and kept in them 
until he died, some four years afterward; while his daugh- 
ter was compelled to become a waiting-maid to Beren- 
garia, whom Richard married before leaving Cyprus. 

When he at last arrived in Syria, after waiting the 
greater part of a year in Sicily and Cyprus, he found 
Philip's army so much weakened by disease and battle 



RICHARD I. AND THE THIRD CRUSADE. 11 

that the men had begun to lose heart. They were be- 
sieging the town of Acre, a strong fortress, guarded by 
the magnificent sultan Saladin, who was at least a match 
for his Christian foes in soldiership, and superior to both 
the leaders in nobility of character. The arrival of Rich- 
ard put new spirit into the crusading army, and after 
some terrible fighting, Acre was taken. A treaty was 
made in which Saladin promised to give up the true cross 
(which was supposed to be still preserved at Jerusalem) 
to pay an enormous ransom in gold for such of his sol- 
diers as were in the Crusader's hands, and to restore 
without ransom all his Christian captives. Part of the 
treaty he said he could not carry out within the forty days 
agreed upon, and asked for an extension of time; which 
the Christian king answered by bringing out three thous- 
and Saracen prisoners and having them hanged in sight 
of their own people. 

Philip of France had no share in this murderous deed; 
he had already left the Holy Land, disgusted at Richard's 
arrogance and vain-glory, jealous of his superior fame as 
a fighter, and ill from the effects of the sultry climate. 
He left ten thousand men under Richard's command and 
then returned to France, having first taken an oath to do 
nothing in England contrary to Richard's interests. 

On his way back he stopped in Rome, where .the Pope 
absolved him from his oath, and when he reached home 
he and John lost no time in conspiring against Richard. 
The latter was now left to conduct the war alone. His 
example inspired his soldiers, and they fought on for a 
year and a half, not hindered by heat or disease or loss. 
Richard took the city of Ascalon, and several others, but 
when the army arrived in sight of Jerusalem there was so 



78 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

much opposition from his officers to spilling more Chris- 
tian blood and spending more Christian time and money 
on the almost hopeless work, that he was obliged to give 
up. He returned to Ascalon, where he found that the 
fortress needed repairing, and as it suited him to help the 
laborers by working at this with his own hands, he in- 
sisted that all the other commanders should do the same. 
When the Duke of Austria, saying that he was not a 
mason, refused to join in the work, it is said that Richard 
struck him. 

It was at last decided by all the Crusaders that they 
might better go back. They were wasting precious hu- 
man lives as well as money to no purpose; and there 
were those among them who had business at home, even 
if the king of England had none. So Richard, as repre- 
senting the whole body of the Crusaders, made a truce 
with Saladin which was to last three years, three months,, 
three days, and three hours. This being done, the wasted 
army set sail from the shores of Palestine, which most of 
them never saw again. 

Richard's ship was wrecked on the way home, and he 
was cast ashore in the dominions of the Duke of Austria, 
the very one whom he had insulted at Ascalon. He 
tried to disguise himself, but his kingly ways betrayed 
him, and the Duke sent him on to the Emperor of Ger- 
many, by whom he was kept in prison for more than a 
year. A pretty story is told as to how his friends at home 
found out where he was. Richard was a fine musician, 
and had himself composed songs which he and his favor- 
ite page, Blondel de Nesle, used to sing together. Blon- 
del was determined to find out where his master was, so- 
he strolled about to the different castles in Germany sing- 



RICHARD I. AND THE THIRD CRUSADE. 19 



ing a song composed by Richard himself; "0, Richard! 
o mon roy \" When he reached the right castle, a well- 
known voice from the tower above joined in, and Blon- 
del carried the good news to England. 

This would be a beautiful story if it were true. The 
only trouble about it is that it was invented by some poet 
who wrote long after both king and minstrel had been 
laid in their graves. It illustrates, however, the strong 
personal feeling which subsided between master and man 
in the age of chivalry.* 

After some bargaining Richard was permitted to ran- 
som himself; and the English, proud of their warlike 
king, who had brought them so much glory and so little 
good, soon raised the money needed. Ladies gave their 
jewels, the people submitted willingly to extra taxes, and 
at length Richard stood once more upon the shores of 
his own country. 

His brother John and Philip of France had done what 
they could toward unsettling the government, but the 
people were too much in favor of law and order to ven- 
ture on any great change; and Eleanor, the mother of 
Richard and John, who was as true to Richard as she had 
been false to her husband, used her great influence in her 
elder son's favor. When Philip heard of Richard's being 
set at liberty he wrote to John, "Take care of yourself, 
for the devil has broken loose." But John did not need 
to "take care" of himself in this sense. Richard gener- 
ously forgave all his misdeeds, and remarked as he did 
so, "I wish I could forget his injuries as easily as he will 
forget my pardon !" 

*For a description of chivalry see "A Short History of France," 
p. 114. 



80 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Against Philip his feelings were very bitter, and as soon 
as he had raised money enough he invaded his dominions. 
To obtain money for his wars, the king no longer de- 
pended upon taxes, but resorted to the most unscrupu- 
lous measures. Among others, he ordered the great seal 
to be broken, and then announced that no grants made 
under that seal were legal, unless the fees belonging to 
the grant were paid a second time, under a new seal 
which he caused to be made for the purpose. In short, 
he was what in our day would be called a swindler ; but 
no one thought of applying an equivalent word to him 
because he was — the king. 

In the course of the war Richard heard that one of his 
Norman vassals had found a treasure hidden in his land. 
Richard demanded this, and on the owner's declining to 
give him more than half of it, immediately besieged him 
in his castle of Chaluz. The garrison defended them- 
selves bravely, but the castle was taken, and Richard, 
wounded in the fight, ordered every man to be hanged 
with the exception of Bertrand de Gourdon, who had shot 
him with an arrow. "What harm had I done you," he 
asked, "that you should wish to kill me?" "You slew my 
father and my two brothers with your own hands," an- 
swered Bertrand, "and you would have slain me if you 
could. Do your worst; I am content to die, since I have 
rid the world of a tyrant." Richard, who by this time 
knew that his wound was mortal, ordered that the young 
man should be set free; but as soon as he was dead, his 
officers put Bertrand to most horrible torture and then 
hanged him. 

Richard's character was a strange mixture of a certain 
kind of loftiness, with intense selfishness and absolute, dis^ 



RICHARD I AND THE THIRD CRUSADE. 81 

regard of his plainest duty. He was a fine soldier, but 
much more than that is needed to make a good king or 
a good man. With his abilities, for he had plenty of 
brains, he might have ruled well and made his people 
happy; but his one desire was for personal glory, and the 
rights of others were but as dust in the balance. 

In Sir Walter Scott's novels of "Ivanhoe" and "The 
Talisman" the romantic side of Richard's life is portrayed. 
It is not necessary for a novelist to say all the ill that he 
"knows of his hero. We can enjoy the heroic part of the 
story, but it is only right that we should hear the other 
side too. Of his ten years' reign, Richard spent in all 
only six months in England; four in preparation for the 
crusade, and two on his return from that expedition, and 
in both these cases his only object was to force money 
from his subjects. Justice, law, and order were appar- 
ently no concern of his. If he could obtain the means 
for his personal gratification, the interest of a million or 
two of people could take care of itself. 

One of the best-known names in England during Rich- 
ard's reign was that of Robin Hood, a famous outlaw* 
who lived, with a band of men like himself, in Sherwood 
Forest. Their sole business was highway robbery, and 
they made a great merit of occasionally giving to the poor 
what they stole from the rich. The clergy were the ob- 
jects of their special dislike, and they delighted in taking 
property belonging to the Church. 

*A person who has committed certain crimes which put him out 
of the protection of the law, so that any one is allowed to kill him 
at sight. 




82 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

CHAPTER X. 

JOHN LACKLAND AND THE MAGNA CHARTA. 

NGLAND had good reason to be sorry for the 
death of Richard I.; for, bad as his rule had 
been, it was not so utterly disgraceful as that 
of his worthless brother John, and the people could then 
take pride in their king's great schemes, though the 
money for carrying them out had been wrung from their 
own life-blood. But there was nothing to admire in John. 
From his boyhood he had been base, mean, and treach- 
erous, and it is probable that the dread of these qualities 
accounted for much of the grief shown at Richard's death. 
Henry II. had jokingly given his youngest son the nick- 
name of "Lackland," because he did not inherit any 
special province, as the others did, though he was to be 
amply provided for; and the name has stuck to him ever 
since, made doubly appropriate by his loss of the rich 
Continental possessions which had for so long been the 
glory of the English nation. 

Arthur of Brittany, son of John's older brother Geoffrey, 
had been put forward by his friends as the rightful heir 
to the throne, and his claim had been at first supported 
by Philip Augustus of France; but upon the marriage of 
Philip's son Louis with Blanche of Castile, John's niece, 
the French king abandoned the claim of Arthur, whom 
John kept in confinement. 

An impenetrable cloud of mystery hangs over the fate 
of this unfortunate prince. When he was sixteen years 
old he escaped from the custody of his uncle and raised 



JOHN LACKLAND. THE MAGNA CHARTA. 83 

a force in Brittany to go against him, but was defeated 
and again made prisoner. After this all is deep darkness; 
the most apparently trustworthy account of his death 
states that John, taking him out in a boat to the middle 
of the Seine, stabbed him with his own hand and threw 
his body into the river. 

In Shakspeare's tragedy of "King John" we have the 
main facts in the life both of the king and of his unhappy 
nephew, though the poet has taken some liberties with 
the less important details. When the facts became 
known, the barons of Brittany appealed to Philip to make 
war on the murderer of their young duke. Philip was 
the over-lord (suzerain) of both Brittany and Normandy 
as well as of all the other countries within the limits of 
France, and was therefore bound to protect any one of 
them against the encroachments of another. He lost 
no time in invading Normandy, which one would 
have expected John to defend with all his might. 
But his mind was occupied with something else. Hav- 
ing fallen in love with a beautiful girl, Isabella of 
Angouleme, who was betrothed to Hugh de la Marche, 
he divorced his own wife, and having obtained the 
consent of Isabella's parents, married her without regard 
to her previous engagement At the time of Philip's 
invasion of Normandy, John was idling away his time 
at Rouen with his new queen, feasting and dancing, 
seeing tournaments and listening to minstrels, while 
Philip was taking city after city and castle after 
castle, almost without resistance. At last the French 
army approached Rouen, and John fled hastily across 
the Channel. Philip took possession of Rouen, and 
Normandy was reunited to France after having be- 



84 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

longed to English kings for nearly a hundred and forty 
years. 

It was the best thing that could have happened to 
England. Humiliating though it was to the Englishmen 
of that time to see one of their fairest possessions slip 
away from them through no fault of their own, it really 
secured the independence of their country. Up to this 
time the kings of England had passed more time in 
France than in their adopted country; their main interest 
had lain in their Continental possessions, and it was well 
that English kings should have English hearts, and not 
owe a divided allegiance. From the time of John, Eng- 
land was a country by itself. 

Philip's conquests did not stop with Normandy. All 
the earldoms in France which had come to England with 
the "Angevins,"* Anjou, Maine, Touraine, etc., were taken 
by him, leaving only a remnant in the hands of the un- 
worthy John. 

The old question of authority had never been quite 
settled between the king and the church. Henry II., as 
we have seen, had annulled the Constitutions of Claren- 
don, the safeguard against ecclesiastical tyranny, and' 
since then the clergy had been allowed to have their own 
way in everything, provided they were ready with their 
angelst to fill the king's purse when he needed money. 
Just at this time, however, the Archbishop of Canterburyl 
died, and the vacancy was filled by Pope Innocent III., 
without referring to the king. The person chosen was 
Stephen Langton, an excellent and very able man, against 

* Belonging to the Anjou family. 

t A gold coin, so called from its being stamped with the figure of 
an angel. 



JOHN LACKLAND. THE MAGNA CHAR'TA. 85 

whom there could be no personal objection; but John 
stood out bravely for his right as king and against foreign 
interference in English affairs. The Pope at once laid 
the whole kingdom under an "interdict." By this all 
public religious services were forbidden; the churches 
were closed, the bells stopped ringing, no marriages or 
burial services could be performed, no masses said for 
living or dead. The baptism of new-born infants and 
extreme unction for the dying were alone permitted. The 
people trembled for fear worse things should come upon 
them, and began, rather under their breath, to murmur 
against the king, who cared nothing for their displeasure. 
Then the Pope excommunicated King John, and wound 
up by pronouncing a sentence of deposition against him ; 
that is, declaring that he was no longer king, and that 
his subjects were excused from any further obedience to 
him. Of course he was furiously angry at all this, and 
began to prepare for war. As he had already taken all 
he could get by ordinary means, he had to look about for 
something extraordinary, and remembered the Jews, 
whom it was always in order to rob and oppress. One 
instance will show his methods: Having demanded an 
enormous gift from a rich Jew who refused to make it, he 
had him shut up, and caused a tooth to be pulled each 
day out of the poor man's head, beginning with the double 
ones. The Jew bore it until seven teeth were gone, and 
on the eighth day he paid the money. We may imagine 
how such people loved King John. 

But all his tricks (and there were many of them) could 
not ward off his misfortunes. The Pope having told the 
king of France that if he would invade England all his sins 
would be forgiven, Philip got an army together for that 



86 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

purpose. Just as he was ready to set out, the English 
barons, who had no mind to see a French army land 
upon their shores, made ready for defence. At the same 
time, the Pope sent a legate or messenger, named Pandulf, 
to persuade the king that the best thing he could do 
would be to submit. So John, deserted by everyone, 
and with Philip's army standing ready to cross the Chan- 
nel, appointed a public meeting between Pandulf and 
himself, at which he gravely took off his crown and laid 
it at the legate's feet, to be put on again by him as a sub- 
ject of the Pope; he consented to Langton's being arch- 
bishop, and promised to pay the Pope an annual tribute 
of money (12 13). The next day, Archbishop Langton 
took off all the Pope's sentences, and John, having fallen 
as low as he could in his own estimation and other 
people's, set about planning fresh wickedness. 

As soon as this ceremony was over and the king was 
sufficiently humbled, the Pope sent word to Philip that as 
John was now a faithful and obedient son of the Church, 
any one opposing him would be considered an enemy to 
true religion, and would be dealt with accordingly. Phil- 
ip's anger at this change of face knew no bounds, and he 
pressed on his preparations for the grand invasion more 
vigorously than ever. Then the English people, who were 
not wanting to themselves in times of emergency, fitted 
out a fleet which fell upon that of Philip in the harbor 
of Damme, in Flanders, and utterly destroyed it. This 
was the first of the many struggles that have taken place 
at sea between the French and English. It was soon 
followed by the battle of Bouvines, in Flanders. John 
had turned the tables on Philip by invading Poitou, which 
was in Philip's dominions. The English king was helped 



JOHN LACKLAND. THE MAGNA CHART A. S7 

by his nephew, the Emperor Otho of Germany; yet 
Philip won a splendid victory, and John made the best 
of his way back to his own country. 

His subjects were now thoroughly tired of a man whose 
tyranny, cruelty, meanness, and lawlessness left no one 
safe, and determined to force him into an agreement by 
which they hoped to be able to bind him. At their head 
was Stephen Langton, a thoroughly patriotic man, who 
by the way, brought on himself the displeasure of the 
Pope by his efforts to reform the newly-reconciled son of 
the Church; but Langton saw so clearly what was right 
that not even the Pope's censure made him hesitate. 
There was much discussion between the king and the 
barons, who really represented the people of England, 
though they had not been chosen by them; and at last, 
both parties met at Runnymede, a pleasant place on the 
banks of the Thames near where Windsor Castle now 
stands. Here we approach one of the greatest events in 
English history, over-topping both foreign war and domes- 
tic rebellion. John angrily declared that he would never 
grant such liberties to his people as would make himself 
a slave; but the barons were too strong for him, and, 
sorely against his will he signed "The Great Charter''* 
on the fifteenth of June, 12 15. This repeated some of 
the declarations of Henry I.'s charter, which had always 
been so dear to the people; but contained besides these 
many new provisions, among which stands the famous 
sentence, " No free-man shall be imprisoned, outlawed, 
or exiled, or dispossessed of his lands, but by the lawful 
judgment of his peers, t or by the law of the land." % Many 

* Magna Charta; (pronounced Carta). 

+ Equals. % A translation, as the Charter was written in Latin. 



88 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

kings afterward swore to observe this charter; many of 
them broke their oaths; but the great principle laid down 
in it has remained from that day to this the safeguard of 
English liberty, and we have inherited its protecting in- 
fluence. * 

By signing an agreement like this, King John felt that 
he had thrown away his own privileges, and his first effort 
was to find out how he could avoid keeping it. He sent 
at once for assistance to his friend the Pope, who oblig- 
ingly annulled the Great Charter, and declared it not at. 
all binding on the king who had sworn to it. The foreign 
mercenariest which John had sent for, arrived at the 
same time with the Pope's bull, and John let them loose 
on the English people, to carry fire and sword through 
the whole extent of England. There had not been such 
merciless destruction since the time of the Conqueror. 
John himself accompanied the army, and, as a sign of 
his displeasure, set fire each morning to the village where 
he had spent the night. % 

The barons seem to have thought when the charter 
was signed that they had nothing more to do; and they 
were unprepared for such an attack. In despair of secur- 
ing their rights by their own efforts, they sent word to 
Prince Louis, oldest son of Philip Augustus, that if he 
would come to England with an army and fight for their 
rights, he should be their king. John they could endure 
no longer. 

*"From her worst king and meanest reign, 

How sprang old England's greatest gain! " — Old rhyme 
t Soldiers hired to fight for some other country than their own. 
% At an earlier period in his career he had caused twenty-two- 
prisoners of war to be starved to death at once in Corfe Castle. 



JOHN LACKLAND. THE MAGNA CHARTA. 89 

Louis spent a long time in making preparations, and 
at last arrived, nearly a year after the signing of the char- 
ter. For some time the English were enthusiastic about 
him, but after a while they began to see that they had 
made a mistake. He was a Frenchman, and by this time 
England had become thoroughly English. There was 
fighting between him and John; castles were besieged 
and taken, and the desolating civil war might have con- 
tinued as long as it did in the time of King Stephen, but 
that the death of John, most welcome to the perplexed 
and harassed nation, brought it to an unexpected end. 

The broad, shallow bay called The Wash, on the coast 
of Norfolk and Lincolnshire, has a road along the shore 
which can be traveled only when the tide is low. In 
passing over this with the rising tide, King John lost not 
only some of his soldiers, but the treasure chests which 
carried his money and the crown -jewels. The distress 
of mind caused by this accident threw him into a fever, 
which soon ended his miserable life. He traveled on as 
far as Swinstead Abbey, near Newark, where the monks 
took as good care of him as they knew how; but as they 
gave him fresh peaches to eat and new cider to drink — 
probably not the best food for a man in a high fever — he 
did not last long, and relieved England of his presence 
by dying, after a reign of seventeen years, in 1 2 1 6. 

It is a singular proof of the detestation in which this 
king's name was held by the English people, that nearly 
two hundred years afterward, in the insurrection of Wat 
Tyler, the rebels made it one of their conditions that no 
king of the name of John should ever be permitted again 
to reign in England. 




90 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER IX. 

HENRY III. SIMON DE MONTFORT. FIRST HOUSE 
OF COMMONS. 

HE English began to show the French prince 
the cold shoulder as soon as they knew of 
John's death. The king had left a son, nine 
years old, and the barons (who stood for England) said, 
"This child has done no harm; why should we deprive 
him of his birthright on account of his father's sins?" So 
Louis took himself and his soldiers home again. The 
little Prince, John's son, was crowned without delay as 
Henry III. The real crown had been lost with King 
John's other valuables in the Wash, so a jeweler hastily 
made a plain gold band which was placed on his head 
by the Pope's legate, and he was made to say that he 
held his crown as a subject of the Pope. A better part 
of the little king's entrance into public life was that he 
promised to observe his father's charter — the Magna 
Charta. He never thought of keeping this promise, when 
he grew to be a man, but it was good for the people to 
be thus reminded of their rights. The Earl of Pembroke, 
a wise and upright man who had married Henry's sister, 
was appointed Protector of the kingdom until the king 
should be of age. The Earl lived only three years after 
this; but his place was taken by another equally admira- 
ble man, Hubert de Burgh, who governed well in Henry's 
name until the latter, grown to manhood, took things 
into his own hands, and poor, weak, unsteady, helpless 
hands they were. The whole of de Burgh's after life 



HENRY III. SIMON DE MONTFORT. 91 

shows that any charge of baseness against him, such as 
appears in Shakspeare's "King John," must rest upon a 
mistake. It was to his promptness and energy that 
Prince Louis owed the naval defeat which took away the 
last hope of establishing a French king in England. De 
Burgh, who was governor of Dover Castle, gathered a 
band of resolute men together and drove away the ships 
sent to Louis's assistance. 

As the young king grew to manhood he showed him- 
self frivolous, unstable, and self-willed, having neither the 
dignity of a man nor the docility of a child. The flat- 
terers about him persuaded him that de Burgh was the 
-evil genius of the country, and Henry turned like a viper 
which the fire has warmed into life, to sting his benefac- 
tor. The king himself had made some inglorious cam- 
paigns in France, the failure of which was laid at de 
Burgh's door, and the faithful minister was dragged from 
a chapel where he had taken refuge, and carried to the 
shop of a smith who was ordered to rivet shackles on his 
legs. "Never!" cried the smith. "You shall kill me 
"before I will put iron on the man who freed my country 
from the Frenchman and saved Dover!" Finding that 
the smith would not be bullied, the ruffians tied de Burgh 
to a horse, and thus strongly guarded, he was taken to 
London and thrown into the Tower. After some time 
lie escaped, but did not appear again in public life. 

At the age of twenty, Henry made an imprudent mar- 
riage with Eleanor, daughter of the Count of Provence, 
in France. Her friends and relations fastened them- 
selves upon the English like leeches. Four of her uncles 
-came with her, and were sumptuously supported at the 
public expense; and the court was filled with foreigners 



92 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

who were lodged, fed, and entertained by King Henry 
as if he had possessed the purse of Fortunatus. 

There is a story about him which would be incredible 
but that it rests on good authority. One day some one 
was admiring the beauty of his little children, and he was 
so much pleased with the compliment that he ordered 
them to be weighed, using silver coins instead of ordinary 
weights, and then scattered the money among the crowd. 
And this was when the whole country was so poor that 
the government officers scarcely knew how to find the 
wherewithal to meet the common expenses. 

In addition to such follies, Henry made costly expedi- 
tions into France, from which he was obliged to retreat 
with loss and disgrace; and but for the forbearance of 
Louis IX. (called St. Louis), he would have lost the little 
French territory which still belonged to the English. 
As there was no longer any hope of getting money legally,, 
the king tried a new plan. He "took the cross;" that 
is, he made a vow to go on a crusade; and for this pur- 
pose extorted gifts from everybody, especially from the 
Jews, whom he plundered without mercy; and when he 
had collected the money he said nothing about the cru- 
sade, but spent it as before. When his first son was born 
he sent out messengers to ask for gifts, in city and coun- 
try. "God gives us the child," said some one, "but the 
king sells him to us." A dozen years afterward the king 
himself went out on a visiting tour and begged every- 
where for money from the people who entertained him. 
When these methods failed, he would take by force such 
provisions and other things as he needed for the royal 
household, without paying for them; and his judges sat 
in the courts, not to punish crime, but to raise money. 



HENRY III SIMON DE MONTFORT. 93 

Any offender could buy himself off, the fine being in pro- 
portion, not to the offence, but to the amount the accused 
was able to pay. All this was in direct violation of the 
Great Charter, in which the king was made to say, "We 
will not deny, nor delay, nor sell justice to any man." 
But the Charter had long been a dead letter. 

It was not only the king who was thus robbing the 
people with both hands, but the Pope. The latter, tak- 
ing advantage of Henry's weakness, demanded constantly 
more and more tribute; and all the chief offices in the 
Church were filled with Italians. The pontiff also offered 
a tempting bait to Henry in the shape of the crown of 
Sicily, which he gave him — on condition of his winning 
it for himself. The king's vanity was excited by the 
offer, and the Pope spent millions of money on his ac- 
count; but the crown of Sicily was as far off as ever. 
The king found himself saddled with an immense debt, 
and as every other means of raising money had been ex- 
hausted, he was obliged once more to have recourse to a 
Parliament. 

The Parliament of that day must not be confused with 
such as make the laws for England now. It was a con- 
tinuation of the Saxon "Witan,"and was composed only 
of nobles, who came when they were summoned by the 
king and were dismissed at his pleasure. The word is a 
French one, and means "talking." 

In the Parliament now called by Henry, Simon de 
Montfort, Earl of Leicester (son to that other Simon 
whose crusade against the Albigenses had been such a 
scandal to Christendom*), proposed a new government, 
having nothing to do with the king, which should reform 

* See "A Short History of France, " p. 77. 



94 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

all abuses and restore law and order to their afflicted 
country. The assembly intended to carry out these plans 
met at Oxford, and was called in derision of its excited 
and stormy sessions "The Mad Parliament." De Mont- 
fort, supported by a body of knights in full armor, was 
the moving spirit, and a set of laws proposed, called "The 
Provisions of Oxford," which the king, as well as the bar- 
ons, swore to observe. Henry did not observe them, 
and things went on from bad to worse, until at last the 
two parties found themselves in open opposition. The 
struggle which ensued is called "The Barons' War." 

Prince Edward, Henry's oldest son (afterward King 
Edward I.), was for some time on de Montfort's sidef 
but some unreasonable demands of the barons made a 
coolness between them, and in the battle which followed 
they were on opposite sides. This battle was fought 
near Lewes* in Sussex, and resulted in a victory for the 
insurgents. The king, Richard Earl of Cornwall, his 
brother, and Prince Edward, were all taken prisoners. 
Henry was slightly wounded in the battle, but crying out,. 
"I am Harry of Winchester, your king; don't kill me!" 
was spared and led to a place of safety. 

An agreement was entered into between de Montfort 
and the king's party, by which the whole matter was 
referred to arbitration. No arbitration was attempted, 
however, for the common people were perfectly satisfied 
with the government of "Sir Simon the Righteous," as 
they fondly called de Montfort. But the earl's supporters 
among the nobility grew fewer and fewer. They were 
jealous of his abilities and of his high position, and when 
he summoned a parliament in 1265, the year after the 

* Pronounced Lew-es. 



HENRY III. SIMON DE MONTFORT. 95 

battle of Lewes, only twenty-three barons came at his 
call, though the clergy were there in large numbers. De 
Montfort then conceived the brilliant idea of appealing 
to the people, as it would be called now-a-days, and sent 
out writs* in the king's name, commanding the sheriffs to 
hold an election at which two knights from each county, 
two citizens from each city, and two burgesses from each 
borough, should be chosen to represent the people of 
England. Here we have the first meeting of the House 
of Commons. Since that time the Lords and the Com- 
mons together have made laws for England under the 
name of Parliament, as our own Senate and House of 
Representatives make laws for us under the name of 
Congress. Thus the first truly representative body of 
men in England was called together by Simon de Mont- 
fort, Earl of Leicester, in the year 1265, half a century 
after the signing of the Great Charter. 

But the great leader was approaching his fall. The 
nobles dropped away from him and ranged themselves 
on the side of the king's party, until at last a clever strat- 
agem set Prince Edward free. The Earl of Gloucester 
had sent him a present of a fine horse, which, as he was 
carefully guarded, no one objected to his receiving. He 
went out for a little airing on his new horse, and asked 
the soldiers who were with him to run races to see who 
was the best mounted, offering to bet on their success. 
When all their horses were thoroughly tired, he put spurs 
to his own and galloped away over the crest of a hill to 
where a small body of his friends were awaiting him, 
while the guard stood stupidly looking on, their horses 

*The writ here spoken of was a summons to attend a meeting 
of Parliament. 



96 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

unable to follow the fresh, fleet one which Edward's 
friends had provided for him. 

It did not take the prince long to gather an army which 
met that of de Montfort at Evesham in Worcestershire. 
When the latter saw in what good order his enemies ad- 
vanced, he remarked, "They come on in wise fashion, 
but it was from me they learned it."* After another look 
he exclaimed, "Now God have mercy on our souls, for 
our bodies are the prince's ! " The battle was short and 
sharp. De Montfort and his son Henry were killed, and 
"The Barons' War" was over. 

But little remains to be told of the reign of Henry III. 
His son Edward, having established order in the country, 
went to work off his superfluous energy in a crusade, the 
seventh, and, as it proved, the last, of these ill-fated and 
life-wasting expeditions. He was to meet Louis IX. of 
France at Tunis, in Africa, and go with him to Jerusalem, 
as his own great-uncle, Richard Cceur de Lion, had gone 
with Philip Augustus, Saint Louis's grandfather; but on 
arriving at Tunis he found that the good king had died 
some time before, and he proceeded on his journey 
alone (1270). Henry died (1272), at the age of sixty- 
five. His is next to the longest reign in English history, 
having lasted from the death of King John, fifty-six years. 

Though the years since Henry had grown to manhood 
had been marked by wretched misrule, yet they were 
years in which the English, as, a people, were making 
great progress. They were learning the value of self- 
government and of resistance to tyranny, and no future 
king would have found it possible to resort to the degrad- 

*So Napoleon remarked, toward the end of his career, that he 
had taught other generals to beat him. 



HENRY III. SIMON DE MONTFORT. 97 

ing expedients used by Henry for getting money. With 
the admission of the Commons to Parliament came an 
era of self-respect. 

To do King Henry justice; with all his weakness and 
■meanness he was neither cruel nor treacherous, as his 
father, King John, had been. He was not without a spice 
of humor, as he showed when several archbishops and 
bishops came to remonstrate with him against unlawfully 
Taising people to high positions in the Church. "It is 
true," said he, "I have been faulty in that respect. I ob- 
truded you, my lord of Canterbury, upon your see; I was 
obliged to employ both threats and entreaties, my lord 
•of Winchester, to get you elected, when you should have 
been sent to school: my proceedings were very irregular 
and violent, my lords of Salisbury and Carlisle, when I 
raised you from the lowest stations to your present dig- 
nities. It will become you, therefore, to set an example 
-of reformation by resigning your present places and try- 
ing to get advancement in a more regular manner." This 
anecdote rests on the authorship of Matthew Paris, who 
has been called "The last, as he was the greatest," of 
the monkish historians. Several others flourished durine 
this century, but there are getting to be too many of them 
for separate mention. 

One thing we have to remember in Henry's favor; it 
was he who began the beautiful Westminster Abbey 
which we now see. The Confessor's church had mostly 
tumbled to pieces by that time; but Henry had un- 
bounded veneration for the original builder, whom he 
adopted as his patron saint, and for whose mouldering 
Telics he wished to provide a suitable shrine. The Abbey 
was not finished in his day nor for many years afterward; 
7 



98 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

but it must have afforded him great satisfaction to see its 
graceful proportions beginning to take shape in solid 
stone. 

Although it is impossible to give the names of many 
writers within the narrow limits of our history, we must 
find room for that of Roger Bacon, who was in some re- 
spects the most wonderful man of his age. He was the 
first man of science that England produced, and his dis- 
coveries, without the means of knowledge which now 
can be had by any school-boy, show how genius, aided by 
industry and perseverance, can make its way in spite of 
hindrance. Do not confound this Bacon, who was a. 
humble monk, with the brilliant philosopher of Queen 
Elizabeth's day. They lived three hundred years apart; 
but any century and any country might be proud of a. 
man like either of the renowned Bacons. 



CHAPTER XII. 

EDWARD I. CONQUEROR OF WALES. 

HEN King Henry died, the Parliament went 
through the form of electing his son. The 
latter had arrived in Sicily on his way home, 
when the news of his father's death reached him; and he 
was in so little haste to take possession of his inheritance 
that he spent more than a year traveling in Italy and 
France before again setting foot on his native land. 

His crusade had not been a successful one. Landing 
at the city of Acre, the only one that remained of all the 




EDWARD I., CONQUEROR OF WALES. 99 

Christian possessions in Palestine, he fought some battles, 
took Nazareth, and performed wonders in the way of per- 
sonal prowess; but beyond that, there was nothing to be 
done. He was accompanied by his devoted queen, 
Eleanor of Castile, to whom he had been married for 
many years. He had one adventure, according to the 
old chronicles, almost worth going to Syria for. While 
reclining one day in his tent just recovering from a fit of 
illness, a messenger came with a letter from the Sultan 
Saladin, his foe; a descendant, probably, of the chivalrous 
adversary of Richard I. As Edward took the letter the 
man stabbed him with a dagger, meaning to pierce his 
heart, but only wounding him in the arm. Edward was 
not so ill but that he sprang from his couch, seized the 
three-legged stool on which his tumbler of cooling drink 
was standing, and with it beat out the brains of the cow- 
ardly assassin. Fearing that the dagger had been poi- 
soned, Queen Eleanor dropped on her knees at the bed- 
side and sucked the blood from the wound. No evil 
effects followed, and the memory of Edward's "cJiere 
regne"* as he called her, has always since been loved and 
honored by the English people. 

Edward was thirty-four years old and in the prime of 
manly vi^or when he arrived in England. He was tall 
and slender, but very strong, and received the nickname 
of Longshanks, from the length of his legs. A more 
honorable addition to his name was that of "The Eng- 
lish Justinian." t After his coronation he spent some 
time in establishing law and order throughout his domin- 

* Beloved queen. 

.+ In allusion to a Roman emperor who prepared and enacted a 
grand code of laws. 



100 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ions, and then his active mind began to seek for some 
more exciting occupation. This was furnished him by 
events which occurred in Wales. 

Wales, as you remember, is the country where the Brit- 
ons took refuge when the devouring Saxons descended 
upon them. King Arthur is the last of their princes to 
appear on the page of history until the time of Edward 
I. of England, when Llewellyn, at that time Prince of 
Wales, refused to come before the English king and pay 
the customary homage. Having repeatedly summoned 
him to do so, Edward marched into his country, and after 
several years of fighting, Llewellyn, who had in him all 
the proud spirit of the ancient Britons, his ancestors, was 
killed in battle. Edward then declared the country to 
be part of England, and when David, Llewellyn's brother, 
continued the war and was betrayed into the hands of 
the English, he was hanged as a traitor. With him per- 
ished the last spark of Welsh independence. 

Edward showed a haughty and vindictive spirit by 
causing the head of the unfortunate Llewellyn to be cut 
off and placed on the Tower of London with an ivy- 
wreath on it, in allusion to an old Welsh prophecy which 
said that Wales should never be conquered until a prince 
of that country should be crowned in London. However 
strongly we may condemn Edward's action, we can not 
deny that the conquest was of great benefit to the Welsh, 
who were still a semi-barbarous nation, and who by being 
gradually assimilated to the English, made great strides 
in prosperity and civilization. 

A horrible story to the effect that Edward ordered a 
general massacre of the bards, or poets, of Wales, because 
he thought that they encouraged their countrymen to re- 



EDWARD /., CONQUEROR OF WALES. 10] 

bellion, was long believed in England, and has only lately 
been received as what it is, a tale of romance. The poet 
Gray, however, who lived in the eighteenth century, has 
made the old tradition the foundation for his grandest 
poem, "The Bard." 

Some time after the close of the war, the Welsh ur- 
gently demanded of Edward a prince of their own nation. 
They were not satisfied to be a part of England, and 
thought that if they had another prince, who would pay 
the desired homage, all might go on as before. Edward 
never had the least idea of gratifying them in this, but he 
put them off by promising them a prince born in their 
own country, who could speak no English. They were 
much pleased with this, and when the king soon after- 
ward appeared on a balcony of Caernarvon Castle in 
Wales, holding his new-born son in his arms, and told 
them here was a prince for them born in their own coun- 
try who could speak no English (and he might have added 
"nor any other language") they could only laugh and 
make the best of it. From that day to this the oldest son 
of the English sovereign has borne the title of Prince of 
Wales. 

A cruel persecution of the Jews stains the annals of 
Edward I.'s reign. They were accused, truly or falsely, 
of clipping the coin;* this was made a capital offence, 
and as the mere possession of a clipped coin was consid- 
ered a proof of guilt, 280 Jews were hanged in one year 
in London alone, as being guilty of that crime. Some 
years after this, the whole Jewish population was thrown 

* It was the custom, for convenience, to cut silver coins into halves 
and quarters, there being no small silver currency; it was therefore 
easy for evii-disposed persons to clip a fragment from each piece. 



102 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

into prison, under pretext of a crime said to have been 
committed by one of their nation, and were only released 
on payment of a fine of ;£i 2.000. At last, after another 
interval, the whole race was banished from the kingdom 
(1290). Their lands and houses were forfeited to the 
crown, but they were allowed to carry away their money 
and jewels, which proved so great a temptation to the 
sailors that many Jews were murdered for these before 
reaching a foreign shore. Jews were not permitted to live 
again in England for nearly three hundred years. 

We come now to what occupied the last fifteen years 
of Edward's reign, his quarrel with Scotland; but before 
beginning on this, we must go back to an earlier period 
to explain the state of affairs there. 

Alexander III., king of Scotland, a descendant of Mal- 
colm and the Saxon princess Margaret, had seen all his 
children die before him. There was not even a grand- 
child living except one little girl named Margaret, the 
child of his daughter Margaret, who had married the 
Prince of Norway. This child was called "The Maid of 
Norway;" and at the death of her grandfather Alexander, 
she was sent for to be queen of Scotland. Edward I. had 
a plan for marrying her to his son, the Prince of Wales, 
but before the poor little thing could reach Scotland she 
was taken ill, and died on one of the Orkney Islands. If 
the marriage had taken place it would have prevented a 
long and bloody war, and hundreds of years of ill-feeling 
between the two nations; but things turned out otherwise. 

The Scottish people were in great perplexity. A king 
they must have, for nobody thought of doing without one 
in those days; and the only persons available for the 
office were those who were descended from the three 



EDWARD I., CONQUEROR OF WALES. 103 

daughters of David, Earl of Huntington, brother of Wil- 
liam the Lion. Lord Hastings, who was son of the 
youngest sister, saw that he had no chance, and withdrew 
from the competition, leaving two candidates, John Baliol 
and Robert Bruce,* between whom it was necessary to 
make a choice. Each side had sturdy partisans, and 
rather than go to war about it, both parties agreed to 
leave the matter to Edward and abide by his decision. 
Edward willingly accepted the office of arbiter, but ham- 
pered his acceptance with a condition very different from 
what the Scots expected. He demanded to be received as 
over-lord (lord paramount) of Scotland; in other words, 
whoever was chosen king must do homage to him for the 
■whole of Scotland. It had for a long time been recog- 
nized that the king of England had rights over certain 
districts there — Strathclyde, for instance, in the south- 
western part, which was granted to them by Edward the 
Elder; but this demand was unprecedented. They saw 
that they were in Edward's power. To refuse to accept 
his arbitration on his own terms would be to make an 
enemy of him, which they could ill afford to do, and would 
also be likely to plunge them into civil war. The Scott- 
ish council consented to his condition and Baliol and 
Bruce each solemnly swore that if he should be the 
chosen one it should be as Edward's "man," bound to 
do homage to him for the kingdom of Scotland. 

Edward, acting on a principle of hereditary right now 
universally agreed to, decided that Baliol, being in direct 
descent from David of Huntington's oldest daughter, was 
the rightful heir to the crown. The Scottish people 

*Not the Robert Bruce about whom so many romantic stories are 
told, but his grandfather. 



104 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

accepted his decision without question, and Baliol was 
crowned at Scone, on the old stone always used for the 
coronation of Scottish kings, and which, afterward carried 
to England by Edward, still forms part of the English 
throne in Westminster Abbey.* 

When Edward went to Scotland the first time after this 
matter was settled, he arranged that his queen should 
follow him there. She set out to do so, but died on the 
way; and Edward, in the deepest grief, at once moved 
southward to accompany her body to its tomb in West- 
minster Abbey. At each place where the funeral pro- 
cession rested for a night on the way, he caused a beauti- 
ful stone cross to be erected in memory of her. The one 
in London was at the place now called Charing Cross, 
(though the cross itself was long ago pulled down), and 
the word Charing is said to be a corruption of the French 
word "Chere regne" — Edward's dear queen. 

There are but two of the thirteen crosses left now, 
those at Wolverhampton and Waltham; but no stone 
monument is needed to keep fresh in English hearts the 
memory of the beloved Eleanor of Castile. 

While the negotiations were still going on with Scot- 
land, Edward became involved, quite unexpectedly, in a. 
war with France (1293) which had in the end some bear- 
ing on the relations with the northern country. The 
original cause of quarrel was slight — only a fight between 
an English and a Norman crew who came to fill their 
water casks at the same well near Bayonne in France. \ 

* An old legend claimed it as the stone which formed Jacob's pil- 
low at Bethel. A modern saying is, that wherever that stone lies, 
there Scotland rules; apropose to which it is remarked that many- 
English ministers are of Scottish blood, Gladstone among the rest. 



EDWARD L, CONQUEROR OF WALES. 105 

A Norman was killed in the scuffle; and, the incident 
being noised abroad, other sailors took up the quarrel, 
and English and Norman vessels could not meet at sea 
without doing some mischief to one another. The Chan- 
nel became the scene of continual acts of piracy; and 
at last a Norman fleet of two hundred vessels was at- 
tacked by an English fleet of eighty, or, as some writers 
say, only sixty ships (it is the English who are telling the 
story!), and almost entirely destroyed. In consequence 
of this, Philip IV., the king of France, summoned Ed- 
ward (who as Duke of Guienne was Philip's vassal), to 
answer for the misdeeds of his sailors. Edward declined 
to go, but sent his brother as deputy. To him Philip 
proposed that he should give up Guienne for forty days, 
merely as a matter of form, and let him put French sol- 
diers into the garrisons during that time. The simple- 
minded deputy readily agreed to this, but he trusted to 
Philip's honor, a quality unknown to the French king. 
Guienne was not restored ; Edward invaded it, and there 
was some fierce fighting done. For a long time victory 
was doubtful; the province was taken and retaken, and 
at last, many years after the two parties of sailors had 
quarrelled as to which should drink first at the crystal 
spring, Guienne was formally restored to England. 

The most important result of this war was the alliance 
formed between France and Scotland, secret at first, but 
openly acknowledged at a later time. For centuries after- 
ward, a common hatred of England joined in close friend- 
ship two nations entirely unlike in position, language, 
and modes of feeling, against another which should have 
been the natural ally of its nearest neighbor. 




105 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE WAR WITH SCOTLAND. 

T might be thought that with the recognition 
of John Baliol as king of Scotland, all trouble 
would have been at an end ; but such was 
not the case. Edward repeatedly summoned Baliol to 
London to answer for certain legal decisions with which 
England had nothing to do, and which it was within the 
province of the Scots to settle as they pleased. He 
refused to permit Baliol to appear by deputy, as he 
himself had done when summoned in a similar case to 
Guienne ; and when the Scottish king obeyed the call, 
treated him with such insolence that Baliol, though a 
mild-tempered man and not very tenacious of his dignity, 
could endure it no longer. He refused to attend an 
English Parliament to which Edward summoned him, 
and the English king instantly marched upon the Scot- 
tish town of Berwick * and took it with brutal cruelty. 
The inhabitants, to the number of eight thousand, were 
massacred in the streets ; • and a few Flemish mer- 
chants, who were bravely defending themselves in the 
Town Hall, were burned alive in it. Here Edward 
received a message from Baliol renouncing his allegiance 
to him, upon which he exclaimed: "The felon fool! 
If he will not come to us we will go to him ! " and imme- 
diately marched northward through Scotland, taking the 
principal cities on the way. Dunbar and Edinburgh 
made a brave stand, but at Stirling Edward found that 

* Pronounced "Berrick." 



THE WAR WITH SCOTLAND. 107 

" the garrison had run away, leaving none but the porter, 
which did render the keys/' He was determined to 
make thorough work of it, and, the chronicler says, 
"went himself into desolate places where there was no 
more than three houses in a row between two moun- 
tains." He returned to Berwick, "having conquered 
and searched the kingdom of Scotland, as is aforesaid, 
in twenty-one weeks without any more." Baliol gave 
himself up and was taken prisoner to England. Here 
he was kept for two years, and was then allowed to go 
to France, where he ended his life in peaceful obscurity. 

It has been commonly said that Scotland has never 
been conquered. Permanently, it never has been so ; 
but, for the time, it was as much a possession of the 
English crown as Normandy was a possession of the 
king of France. The country was in Edward's hands ; 
an English governor and his council took the place 
of the Scottish king and his nobles, and every fortress 
had an English garrison. But this did not last long. 
In the breasts of the Scottish people still burned the fire 
■of national freedom, and an army of husbandmen, under 
the leadership of William Wallace, gave a check to 
English dominion from which it never fully recovered. 

In Wallace himself we have again the right man for 
the right time. Very little is known of him personally, 
though we feel so well acquainted with him as the hero 
-of Miss Porter's novel, "The Scottish Chiefs," that we 
may be excused for sometimes confusing romance and 
history. But it is certain that his great heart beat only 
for his country ; and that he looked for his supporters, 
not among nobles and men of renown, who fought for 
glory and the love of adventure, but among the Scottish 



108 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

peasants, who had little to lose but liberty. Wallace 
sought nothing for himself; he had not, as far as we can 
see, any special interest in Bruce, who, after Baliol's 
death, was recognized by the Scottish party as king ; he 
was only determined that his country should be free. 
He was cruel in war, as were all the military captains of 
that day. None of them, except perhaps Saint Louis,, 
had learned that, though war may be necessary to enforce 
the right, revenge is always barbarous. All we can say 
of him is that in this respect he did not rise above the 
spirit of the time. 

The first great battle between the two nations was 
fought near Stirling. The English governor of Scotland, 
Earl Warrenne, who was in command, sent to offer terms 
of peace ; but Wallace uttered the feeling of his whole 
army when he answered : " We have not come here for 
peace, but to free our country." By choosing his ground 
skilfully, he defeated the enemy with great slaughter, and 
the spirits of his party rose accordingly. Among the 
slain was Cressingham, the treasurer of England, to 
whom the Scots bore such hatred that they cut his skin 
into strips and made bridles of it. It was the ferocity of 
a barbarous age, and in French history, as late as the 
following century, we find a similar incident* 

Edward now concentrated his forces at Falkirk. His 
sixty years had not taken away his strength nor dulled 
his vigor ; and though he broke two of his ribs the night 
before the battle, he fought on just the same. Wallace^ 
on his part, was prepared for a desperate struggle. He 
said to his men : " I have brought you to the ring ; now 
hop (dance) if you can ! " They could not hop to the 

* See "A Short History of France," p. 130. 



THE WAR WITH SCOTLAND. 109 

same tune that the English did ; they were defeated, 
with the loss of fifteen thousand men, and Wallace, after 
fighting until most of his friends had fallen, fled for his 
life. 

For several years we hear but little more of him. 
He kept up a straggling partisan warfare, much like that 
in the Carolinas during our Revolution, doing what harm 
he could without bringing his little band into danger of 
capture; but at last he was basely betrayed into Edward's 
hands, taken to London, and there executed for treason, 
according to the barbarous provisions of English law 
(1305).* When charged with the crime, he answered: 
"Traitor I can not be, for I was never a subject to the 
king of England ; " but he was too dangerous an enemy 
to be spared when he was once in Edward's power. 
The king has been severely blamed for his execution ; 
but we must remember that, to Edward, Wallace was 
like any other rebel, an enemy to be got rid of at any 
cost; and that the halo of patriotism which centuries 
have thrown so brightly around his head was not visible 
to his foe, who saw in him only a mischievous disturber 
of the peace. 

The Scottish and French wars could, of course, be 
carried on only at an enormous expense, and with money 
England was poorly provided. The king, who was too 
proud to appeal to Parliament, tried in all sorts of ways 

* The prisoner was hanged enough to choke, but not to kill him ; 
then his heart was cut out of his body and thrown on a fire already 
kindled for the purpose. The head was set up where it could be 
seen by as many persons as possible, and the rest of the body, cut 
into quarters, was shown in different places. This continued to be 
done in cases of treason down to the middle of the 18th century. 



110 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

to get what he needed. He asked the clergy for contri- 
butions; they resisted. He levied taxes by his own au- 
thority, on wool and hides. That on wool was known as 
"The Evil Toll." Some of his principal nobles warned 
the sheriffs to collect no more taxes until the charters 
had been confirmed by Edward. So, after struggling for 
a while to get his own way, and finding that though he 
was resolute, the people were so also, he gave up grace- 
fully, called a Parliament, saying that "what concerns all 
should be approved by all," and thus established the 
great principle that the people of England can not be 
taxed except by their own consent (1297). We applied 
the same principle to ourselves in our Revolution; it cost 
ns a bloody struggle, but we won in the end. Thus out of 
evil came good, for Edward would never have consented 
so to limit his own power if he had not been hard pressed 
by Scotland on one side and France on the other. 

It is amusing to be told, in connection with the new 
Parliament formed of Lords and Commons together, that 
serving in it was expensive and unpopular; and that it 
was often the custom of the Commons, when they had 
voted the money required, to break up their part of the 
assembly and go home, leaving the laws to be made by 
the lords. It took a long time to educate the people up 
to their privileges. 

Edward never gave up trying to conquer Scotland. 
The first Robert Bruce had been dead for some years;, 
his son, the second Robert, died in the same year with 
Wallace, and we now come to the well-known Robert 
Bruce, who began his public career by an act of murder 
and sacrilege. At twenty-three years old he was a soldier 
in Edward's army, and was undecided, when his father 



THE WAR WITH SCOTLAND. Ill 

died, whether it would be best for him to continue a 
peaceful subject of England or to renew the old claim of 
his family to the Scottish throne. The latter meant war 
to the knife with Edward, for the Baliol family were 
under his protection. Just at this time Bruce met John 
Comyn, Baliol's nephew (called "The Red Comyn"), in 
a church, and while disputing with him about their respec- 
tive claims, drew his dagger and plunged it into Comyn's 
body. It was a wicked deed, but it was done, and nothing 
was left for Bruce but to brave it out as best he could. 
Gathering together as many of his friends as he could 
muster at short notice, he went secretly to Scone to re- 
ceive his title of king in due form. It had always been 
the privilege of the Earls of Fife to place the crown upon 
their sovereign's head. It was fortunate for Bruce that 
the earl of his time was absent, for he was a friend of the 
English; so the ceremony was performed by Fife's sister, 
the Countess of Buchan. Edward had carried off to- 
England not only the coronation stone, but the royal 
robes and crown jewels. Friends, however, supplied 
what was needed, and Robert I. was declared king of 
Scotland. "Now you are queen and I am king," he said 
proudly to his wife after their coronation. "I'm afraid 
we are only playing at being king and queen, like chil- 
dren," answered the more prudent Mary. It was not long 
before they were separated. The wife was taken pris- 
oner, and eight long years passed before they met again. 
Edward's anger at this act may be imagined. Every 
one who had had anything to do with crowning Bruce 
was punished if it was possible to get at him; even the 
Countess of Buchan was captured and exhibited in a 
cage at Berwick, while Bruce's sister suffered the same 



112 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

indignity at Roxburgh. After a battle, in which Bruce 
was defeated, he fled to the mountains, and as many of 
his followers as were taken suffered death.* 

Once more Edward set out for Scotland, determined 
this time to put an end to Bruce and his pretensions, but 
his strength was not equal to the effort, and he died at 
Burgh -on -the -Sands, within sight of the Scottish shore. 
He was in the sixty -eighth year of his age, and had 
reigned thirty-five years. 

Edward I. was unquestionably a great man. His worst 
fault was ambition, which, in the matter of the Scottish 
war, turned to absolute hatred of those who opposed 
him. In Westminster Abbey you can still read the in- 
scription placed there by his order: "Edward I. The 
Hammer of the Scots. Keep Covenant. "t 

In enforcing law and order his course recalled the days, 
of Henry Plantagenet. Like him, he came after a time* 
of fearful misrule, when neither life nor property was safe, 
and he established such order, and was so well known 
for his stern justice, that the thieves and highwaymen 
who had been in the habit of going about in armed bands, 
found it best to follow some other kind of business. One 

*The famous story of Bruce and the spider belongs to this period. 
It is said that Bruce, disheartened by a long succession of misfort- 
unes, was lying in a wretched hut and wondering whether it was 
worth while to keep up his efforts, when he saw a spider who was 
trying to fasten the first thread of her web to a beam in the ceiling. 
Six times she failed and fell back again, Bruce watching her, mean- 
while, with intense interest. The seventh time she succeeded in 
fastening the thread; and the weary king, determined not to be out- 
done by a poor insect, decided to make one more trial. After this 
lie was successful. 

+ Edwardus Primus. Malleus Scotorum. Pactum Serva. 



THE WAR WITH SCOTLAND. 113 

of the laws passed during this reign throws a strong light 
on some dangers of the time. No hedges, woods, or 
shrubbery, nothing, in short, except large trees, was to be 
allowed within two hundred feet of a public highway, on 
either side of the road. If the owner of the property, 
(a "lord" of it as he is called in the Act), does not clear 
away the shelter for thieves thus described, he is to be 
made answerable for any robbery committed there. 

The strength of Edward I.'s character is all the more 
noticeable because he comes between a weak father and 
an indolent, pleasure -loving son. The contrast is sharp 
and painful. 

It was in Edward's reign that the celebrated statute of 
■" Mortmain" was enacted. The practice of leaving prop- 
erty by will to the church had become a source of loss to 
the king because property so left fell into an ownership 
which could not die, which therefore might hold it for- 
ever, while in all other cases it must fall into new hands 
at the end of each owner's life if not oftener; and if there 
were no other claimant, it fell to the crown. The un- 
broken grasp of the church was likened to that of a dead 
hand — "morte-main." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

EDWARD II. BANNOCKBURN. 

HE last instructions of Edward I. to his son the 
Prince of Wales, then twenty- three years old, 
were that he should not recall Piers Gaveston, 
a young Frenchman from Gascony who had already 
8 




114 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

brought the prince more than once into trouble, and that 
he should, on peril of his father's curse, carry his bones 
(i.e., his body) with him into Scotland, and never bring 
them back until that country was conquered. Edward 
II., as disobedient to his father after his death as he had 
been during his life, instantly recalled the unworthy favor- 
ite, sent his father's corpse back to Westminster to be 
buried, and having marched the army laboriously col- 
lected by Edward I., a few miles into Scotland, disbanded 
it and returned to England. Gaveston soon became his. 
only companion and counsellor, all Edward I.'s ministers 
being dismissed with scorn. Edward disgusted his fath- 
er's friends still more by giving his own niece in marriage 
to Gaveston, and by making him guardian of the kingdom 
when he himself went to France to celebrate his marriage 
with Isabella, daughter of Philip the Fair. There was 
no end to the favorite's insolence and the king's folly. 
Gaveston thought it very witty to call the haughty Eng- 
lish gentlemen by absurd names. The Earl of Lancaster,, 
the king's cousin, was, in his elegant, language, "the old 
hog,"* or sometimes, "the play-actor." Aymar de Val- 
ence, Earl of Pembroke, who had a dark complexion, was. 
nicknamed "Joseph the Jew/' and the Earl of Warwick 
became "the black dog of Ardennes." Warwick said he 
would teach him that the dog could show his teeth; and 
every one of these men was resolved upon his ruin. 

By the time the king returned from France after his- 
marriage the discontent had grown to fury. There is an 
old proverb which says, "Whom the gods would destroy, 
they first make mad;" and the two young men were ex- 

* In allusion to the boar's head which appeared on the earl's 
escutcheon. 



EDWARD II BANNOCKBURN. 115 

amples of it. When King Edward first met his favorite, 
in the presence of a crowd of high-born guests come 
together to pay their respects to the young queen, he and 
Gaveston flew into one another's arms and embraced like 
school-girls, forgetful of the presence of any one else. As 
soon as possible Edward made a present to Gaveston of 
a hundred thousand pounds in money, besides all the 
rich gifts bestowed on him by his father-in-law, Philip the 
Fair, which was looked upon by the queen and the uncles 
who came with her, as an insult. The queen's own out- 
fit was furnished from the spoils of the Knights Templars 
whom Philip had, with cruel treachery, lately destroyed 
in France.* She was a girl of only thirteen years old, 
and no one who saw her handsome face could have 
guessed what misery and disgrace were to spring from 
this seemingly promising union. When the barons in- 
sisted that the king should banish Gaveston from the 
country, Edward did it by making him Lord Lieutenant 
of Ireland. He next induced the Pope to absolve his 
favorite from the oath he had been forced to take never 
to return to England; back he came, more insolent and 
reckless than ever, and again the king's imprudent affec- 
tion displayed itself. Edward's misgovernment increased 
year by year; the public money was wasted and the pub- 
lic welfare disregarded while he and Gaveston feasted 
and revelled as if the one object of life had been frolick- 
ing together. The barons managed to get hold of the 
favorite, and after a mock trial, he was beheaded near 
Warwick Castle. When Edward heard this he was filled 
with grief and rage. He tried to raise an army to fight 
the rebellious barons, but his subjects were more in sym- 

* See "A Short History of France," Chapter 3d. 



116 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

pathy with them than with him. In the meantime, the 
rebels were coming against him with a much larger force 
than he could bring together; and some friends, in pity 
for his forlorn condition, and desiring to ward off a civil 
war, made peace between them. 

Robert I. of Scotland (Bruce) was by this time pretty 
firmly seated upon his throne, but the English felt that 
their national honor called for a renewal of the war; and 
now that Gaveston was out of the way, they raised such 
a splendid army as had never before marched out of 
England. The king, as a matter of course, took command 
of it. Nothing was spared, and the king started at the 
head of his troops for Stirling Castle, which Bruce was 
besieging. But he never reached the castle, for at Ban- 
nockburn, two miles distant, was fought the battle which 
decided the fate of Scotland. 

Robert Bruce the king was a very different person 
now from the vacillating, self-seeking youth who plunged 
his dagger into the breast of the Red Comyn eight years 
before. He had had long years of hiding and poverty 
before he could feel secure of even his life; and had 
learned those lessons of self-control and patient endur- 
ance of hardship which adversity can best teach. Since 
he had been king in reality as well as in name, he had 
governed his country admirably; and though the people 
in some parts of it were still exposed to sudden attacks 
from the English, in the cruel spirit of the time, when 
burning and ravaging seemed to be the natural order of 
things, the country in general enjoyed a season of peace. 

Bruce's army of 30,000 men was not in number more 
than a third as large as Edward's, but all were animated 
by one spirit, the love of country; while on the English 



EDWARD II BANNOCKBURN. 117 

side was sullen dislike of the king among the common 
people and open unwillingness to help him on the part 
of the nobles, many of the latter having refused to join 
him at all. 

Bruce chose his position with great judgment. There 
was a mountain on one side, a swamp on the other, and 
the little brook Bannock in front. Along the bank of 
this stream he had caused pits to be dug, covered with 
turf and bushes, and into these were driven stakes, with 
sharpened points sticking upward. Tradition tells us that 
the day and night before the battle were spent by the 
Scotts in fasting: 

"They dynit none of them that day," 

says the poet who celebrates the battle. 

On the day itself the English came prancing along in 
their shining armor, full of pride in themselves and con- 
tempt for their enemies, the latter, being poorly provided 
with horses, fighting mainly on foot. The pits which had 
been dug threw Edward's horsemen into confusion; and 
taking advantage of this, Bruce sent Sir James Douglas 
to charge upon them, and they were utterly routed. The 
English infantry seeing them fly, were thrown into con- 
sternation. One and all they broke their ranks and fled, 
their officers finding it impossible to rally them. As there 
was no place where the great host could take shelter 
within eighty miles, they might almost all have been 
made prisoners, but that the Scots preferred plundering 
the English camp, where they found a vast amount of 
booty. Edward and the remains of his army hastened 
on to Dunbar and from there took ship for Berwick, leav- 
ing ten thousand dead and wounded on the field; and 



118 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the attempts to conquer Scotland were brought, for the 
time at least, to a close (13 14). 

The adventures and exploits of Bruce were long the 
subjects of Scottish song and story. Toward the end 
of the same century, John Barbour's poem of "The 
Bruce" woke again the echoes of national pride; and 
in the century following a minstrel called "Blind Harry" 
celebrated with no less ardor the brave deeds of Sir 
William Wallace. We are all familiar with the noble 
song of Burns beginning : 

"Scots, wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled; 
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led ! " 

It is supposed to be addressed by Bruce to his army 
before the battle of Bannockburn. 

The misery caused in England by the Scottish war 
was increased by misfortune at home. In the year 
of Bannockburn there was a poor harvest; and the 
government, disregarding the natural law which we know 
as that of "supply and demand," undertook to regulate 
the price of provisions. This only made matters worse. 
The next season, in addition to famine, there was a 
disease among the cattle which carried off many thou- 
sands of them. The great barons, who had been 
accustomed to feeding and caring for hundreds of 
retainers whose services they claimed in war, being no 
longer able to support them, turned them out to beg, 
steal, or starve, and the country was again filled with 
bands of plunderers. In the midst of all this distress, 
the king was occupied with two new favorites, the 
Despensers, father and son, less mischievous than 
Gaveston but hated on account of the favors bestowed 
on them. The earl of Lancaster, always in the opposi- 



EDWARD II. BANNOCKBURN. 119 

tion, headed those who were against the Despensers. 
A chance turn of affairs in the king's favor enabled him 
to defeat the earl and take him prisoner; and the old 
man was beheaded before his own castle gate. He was 
mounted on a poor starved pony without saddle or 
bridle, pelted with stones, and thus led out to execution. 
Twenty-eight knights taken with him were hanged, drawn, 
and quartered. Such was the idea of war in those 
dreadful times. 

Queen Isabella, who had long despised her husband, 
now formed a plan to separate herself from him. Mak- 
ing a frivolous excuse, she took her oldest son to Paris, 
where she was soon followed by a favorite of her own, 
Roger Mortimer, and no persuasions could induce her to 
return. It brings tears to one's eyes even now to read 
Edward's pathetic letters to her and his son; but it was 
of no use. She went to Flanders, and there performed 
the one good action of her life by betrothing her son to 
the count's daughter, Philippa of Hainault. 

Many of the discontented nobles, with their followers, 
had joined Isabella and Mortimer in Flanders, and there 
they contrived dark plots against the unfortunate king. 
Having collected a sufficient number of men to cairy out 
their purposes they sailed for England, where Isabella so 
gained over the Parliament that Edward II. was deposed 
and the young Prince Edward crowned in his place. In 
the meantime the king was hurrying from place to place, 
trying to hide from his enemies, who by this time in- 
cluded almost all his subjects. At last, abandoned and 
deserted by all, he was seized, and after being passed 
along from one hard-hearted keeper to another, came to 
his end in Berkeley Castle. He had before this been 



120 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

shamefully insulted; a crown of hay was placed on his 
head, and the soldiers brought him ditch-water to shave 
with. At this the tears ran down his cheeks, and he said 
to his tormentors, "I have some clean warm water here 
[his tears] in spite of you!" Finally the queen and 
Mortimer began to see signs of a change of feeling 
among the people; and, to prevent any possible reaction 
of feeling, the king was barbarously murdered (1327). 
The poet Gray has put into the mouth of his "Bard"" 
a prophecy of this event : 

"Mark the year and mark the night, 
When Severn shall re-echo with affright 
The shrieks of death through Berkeley's roof that ring, 
Shrieks of an agonizing king ! " 

Poor Edward ! His life was all wrong from the begin- 
ning. He made the mistake of preferring pleasure to 
duty; he was a disobedient son, and he had no sense of 
responsibility. His whole life was one of shifts and 
evasions. But he suffered fearfully for his faults and 
follies; and the memory of his misfortunes softens some- 
what our indignation at his misdoings. He was at the 
time of his death only forty-three years old, and had 
been king for nearly twenty years. 



CHAPTER XV. 

EDWARD III. THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 



jjjDWARD III. was a boy of fourteen when the 
crown was placed on his head in 1327. His 
kS^Mi father was still living, but the government was 



carried on entirely by the queen and Roger Mortimer. 



EDWARD III. HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 121 

While he was away from London on an expedition 
against the Scots, his promised bride, Philippa of 
Hainault, came from Flanders escorted by her uncle; 
and not finding the bridegroom they followed him to 
York, when he and Philippa were married in the grand 
old minster. 

Mortimer, who had now become Earl of March, made, 
in the king's name, what was thought a disgraceful peace 
with Scotland. The independence of that country was 
fully acknowledged, all claim to homage being given up. 
Robert Bruce was recognized as king, and his only son 
David, was betrothed to Edward the Third's sister, 
Joan.* The English were enraged at what seems to us 
a very sensible agreement ; the ill-will toward Mor- 
timer grew stronger than ever, and a plot was formed 
against his life. The king himself, now seventeen years 
old, was the leader in this. It was difficult to secure 
Mortimer, who lived with Isabella at Nottingham Castle, 
as the keys were brought every night to the queen, who 
slept with them under her pillow. But the governor told 
the conspirators of a secret underground passage by 
which they could enter the castle. t Through this they 
went, after dark, the king meeting them at the end of the 
passage. In silence and darkness they crept up stairs, 
till they heard Mortimer's voice. They then rushed in 
and took him prisoner, in spite of the entreaties of 
Queen Isabella, who called out from the next room, 
"Oh, my sweet son, spare my gentle Mortimer!" A 
parliament was called expressly to judge him. He was 

*Pronounced "Jone"; not "Joan." 

+The entrance to this is still visible at Nottingham, and is called 
"Mortimer's Hole." 



122 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

declared guilty of treason, and condemned to be hanged 
at Tyburn. This was the first execution at that famous 
place, which was, until recent times, still used for the 
same purpose. 

Though there can be no doubt that Mortimer deserved 
to suffer death (for he confessed that he had directed 
King Edward's murder), the hasty action in some measure 
defeated its own object, since at a later time the sentence 
was reversed on account of its being illegal, and through 
a royal marriage with one of his descendants, the blood 
of this very Roger Mortimer flows in the veins of Queen 
Victoria. 

After Mortimer's death, Edward III. took the govern- 
ment into his own hands, and confined his mother to her 
house of Castle Rising, making her an occasional formal 
visit, but not allowing her to have any share in public 
affairs. At the age of eighteen, he already showed 
so much sense and discretion that the turbulent barons 
ceased to oppose him, and the country put on an appear- 
ance of peace and prosperity. 

Robert Bruce died about a year after the battle of 
Bannockbur.i, leaving a son of only eight years old (the 
little David, already betrothed to Edward's sister, Joan) 
to be king after him. This gave a new impulse to the 
war which was always going on between England and 
Scotland. Edward Baliol, the son of John the former 
king, raised an army with which he defeated the friends 
of King David at Perth with great loss. The Scots were 
by no means united in support of their young king, and 
Baliol was crowned at Scone, David and his betrothed 
wife, called by the Scotch "Joan Makepeace," being 
sent to France for safety. 



EDWARD III. HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 123 

Edward III. of England, now joining his forces with 
those of Baliol, fought a great battle at Halidown Hill, 
near Berwick, completely defeating tlie Scots, and 
securing the town of Berwick as a possession to Eng- 
land. Baliol, however, was not allowed to remain in 
Scotland, and David Bruce returned to his kingdom. 

Meantime, Edward III.'s ambition was taking a new 
turn. The affairs of France were in a disturbed state, 
as no one of Philip's IV. 's three sons (the last of whom, 
Charles IV., was now dead) had left any male heirs, and 
what was called the Salic law in France did not permit a 
woman to reign there (on account, an old writer says, of 
the imbecility of the sex). This traditional law had 
never been formally enacted by statute; but as it had 
prevailed in France for nine hundred years, the French 
people had no mind to do away with it. Edward laid 
claim to the throne through his mother, Philip's sister. 
There were two reasons against this : one being that it 
was for the French people, and not for the king of Eng- 
land, to decide what the Salic law meant; and the other, 
that two of Isabella's older brothers had left daughters, 
each of whom had a son. Notwithstanding this, Philip 
•ofValois, nephew of Philip IV., was proclaimed at once 
by the council, so entirely was the Salic law understood 
to provide for unbroken male succession. 

Edward's ambition, however, took no account of any 
•objections, so he plunged his country into a war that 
lasted, off and on, for more than a hundred years, wasting 
millions of English money and tens of thousands of Eng- 
lish lives, and leaving at last the English possessions in 
France far smaller than when the war began. 

The first struggle between the two nations took place 



124 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

on the water. Having obtained as many foreign allies* - 
as he could, Edward set sail with a fine fleet and army 
for Flanders, where he met the French fleet, and won a 
complete victory in the harbor of Sluys. 

His great trouble in all these wars was, of course, the 
want of money. At first the parliament granted it very 
willingly, but after a while they grew tired of the con- 
tinual demands for it, and protested that they could raise 
no more. The clergy were very generous to him, and 
gave him, voluntarily, one tenth of their incomes; he 
borrowed from the merchants of Florence and other 
foreign cities all the gold they would lend; he pawned 
the crown-jewels, both his own and Philippa's; and 
finally, he sent word to all the gentlemen in England 
who had an income of £>\o ($200) or over to come at 
once to London and receive the honor of knighthood, or 
else pay a fine. This kind of "Stand-and deliver" prac- 
tice was not uncommon in those days. Of course each 
knight paid a fee to the king when he received the title 
of "Sir," and a blow on the shoulder from his Majesty's- 
sword; but many of them would rather have been 
excused from accepting the honor. With Edward it: 
was always "Heads, I win; tails, you lose." They paid 
a fine if they stayed away; a fee if they came. 

We come now to the battle of Cressy — the first great 
English battle on French ground. Edward had a com- 
paratively small army — less than 30,000 men, all told,, 
— while Philip VI. had, the English historians say, from 
eight to ten times that number; but they had no such 
general as Edward. He drew up his army on the gentle 
slope of a hill, with a windmill at the top from which he 

* Pronounced ol-lies, with accent on the second syllable. 



EDWARD III. HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 125 

could watch its operations (the windmill is there yet), 
and a small ditch in front. There were first used "bom- 
bards, which, with fire, threw little balls of iron to 
frighten the horses ! " This is the first time the use of 
cannon is mentioned. Roger Bacon had invented or 
discovered gunpowder, but he did not make any practi- 
cal use of it, and would probably have been shocked to 
learn that his new mixture would ever be employed for 
killing men. The cannon at Cressy did not do much 
harm to the enemy, and had a bad habit of exploding 
after a few balls had been fired, which caused them to be 
looked on with small favor until stronger castings came 
into use. 

The prince of Wales, named Edward, like his father, 
was at this time sixteen years old, and was fighting in 
the field like anybody else, when some one brought 
word to the king that his son was hard pressed by the 
enemy, and asked for help. "Is my son dead, or un- 
horsed, or badly wounded?" inquired Edward. "No, 
Sire, but he is fighting hard, and needs your aid." 
"Let the boy win his spurs,"* answered Edward, "for I 
wish, if God so wills it, that the day may be his." The 
French were tired with marching when they began the 
battle; their officers were not equal to handling so great 
a host; and though they fought fiercely, the English 
bowmen won the day. 

Never before had such a victory been gained by any 
English army. Thirty-five thousand of the enemy lay 

* In allusion to the honor of knighthood, by which gilt spurs were 
given to a young squire who had fought bravely, instead of the iron 
ones worn by all common horsemen. For a detailed account of the 
usages of Chivalry, see "A Short History of France," p. 115. 



126 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

dead upon the field, including many of their highest 
nobility and eleven princes of the blood. The blind old 
King of Bohemia, determined to have his share of the 
glory, rode into battle between two knights, their horses 
tied to his, that he might not be lost in the crowd. All 
were slain, and the Prince of Wales adopted the three 
ostrich feathers which formed the Bohemian king's crest 
and his beautiful motto, "Ich dien" — "I serve" — as his 
own, and they have been borne by every Prince of Wales 
from that day to this. It is said that the French gave 
the young Edward the name of "The Black Prince," from 
the color of the armor he wore on that day. 

From Cressy, King Edward marched with his army to 
Calais, not very far off, which he besieged for nearly 
a year before he could make it surrender. During this 
time a battle was fought at Neville's Cross, in the 
northern part of England, with poor unlucky King 
David, son of Robert Bruce, who always seemed to be 
on the losing side. This time he was taken prisoner and 
carried to London. Philippa, who had been left regent 
of England while Edward was in France, was present at 
this battle. She rode through the ranks encouraging the 
troops, and then retired to her tent to pray for their 
success. 

The Parliament were so delighted with the victories of 
Cressy and Neville's Cross that they gave Edward all the 
money he wanted. The tax on the exportation of wool 
was one of those given at this time to the king, which 
caused Philip of Valois to speak contemptuously of him 
as "The English Wool Merchant." Edward had his 
jest in return, for on learning of an oppressive tax on 
salt raised by Philip for his expenses (every person, 



EDWARD III. HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 127 

even the poorest, being obliged to buy a certain quan- 
tity of salt each year for the king's benefit), he remarked 
that his French rival truly reigned by the Salic law.* 

But we have left Edward too long besieging Calais. 
(No doubt the hungry sufferers there thought the same). 
When the town was first invested by his army, the garri- 
son turned out seventeen hundred useless people, 
women, children, and old men, who could not fight and 
only helped to eat up the provisions, and Edward kindly 
gave them each a good meal and two small pieces of 
money, letting them go where they pleased. Later in 
the siege, when he had become very angry at being kept 
there so long, they sent out five hundred more starving 
wretches; but the king would do nothing for them, and 
most of them died miserably in sight of his soldiers. 

When the siege had lasted nearly a year, the garrison 
could hold out no longer. Edward at first threatened to 
kill them all, but finally agreed that if six of the principal 
citizens were sent to him, barefooted, with ropes around 
their necks, he would let the rest go free. Wild was the 
grief in Calais when the hard terms were made known. 
The burghers met in the town-hall to consider the matter, 
and for a long time a dead silence prevailed. At last 
the richest and most honored man in the town, Eustace 
de St. Pierre, arose and said he would be the first. One 
by one, five others followed him. Then the governor, 
Sir John de Vienne, was mounted on a little pony, for 
he was too weak to walk, and amid the loud weeping and 
wailing of their fellow- townsmen, he led the six men to 
the gate of the city, and delivered them, with the keys, 
to Sir Walter Manny, whom Edward had sent to receive 

*"Sal" was the old French word for salt. 



128 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

them (1347). When they were taken to the king, their 
cheeks wasted by hunger and their tottering legs scarcely 
able to support them, every heart was moved by pity — 
every heart except the king's. He had made up his 
mind, and he was not going to alter it for the entreaties s| 
of any number of his. own brave soldiers. " Strike off 
their heads!" said he fiercely. But now good Queen \ 
Phillippa came up to him, and falling on her knees, , 
begged him for her sake to grant their lives. 

The king at first made no answer; he was struggling ; 
with his anger, but at last he said, "Dame, I wish you 1 
had been anywhere else; but as you want them, I give 
them to you. Do with them as you please!" Philippa 
soon signified her pleasure in the matter. She ordered 
that the six citizens should each have a good dinner, a 1 
suit of handsome clothes, and a present in money. 
Her victory at Neville's Cross was outdone by the one 
she gained at Calais. 

King Edward tried his best to make Calais an English 
town. He turned out the French inhabitants and invited 
his own people to come in and settle it; but even the 
offer of houses rent-free did not bring very desirable 
tenants, and after a while he was glad to let some of the 
rich burghers come back to give respectability to the 
place. Still, it remained largely English, and that may 
have been the reason why the English were able to keep 
it for more than two hundred years. 




THE BLACK PRINCE. 129 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE BLACK PRINCE. 

OLLOWING closely upon the success at Calais 
came that terrible pestilence known in Europe 
as the "Black Death" (1348-49). In London 
alone, 50,000 persons are said to have died of it, and 
France was in so terrible a condition that both armies 
stopped fighting and waited for better times. 

We have now another curious instance of the effort to 
interfere, by legislation, with the natural laws which 
govern supply and demand. As the number of laborers 
in England became fewer, by reason of the plague, those 
who were able to work demanded higher wages; upon 
which laws were made fixing the rate of wages at a certain 
sum per day, and threatening severe punishments to 
those who refused to work at that price. This, of course, 
produced great irritation, and was soon abandoned. 

Philip of Valois, king of France, died in 1350, and 
was followed by his son John, called, with very little 
reason, "The Good." For several years unhappy France 
was the scene of continual ravaging by two English 
armies, King Edward's in the north and the Black 
Prince's in the west. The Prince, sailing up the river 
Garonne, carried his army into the richest part of France, 
■"one of the fat countries of the world, the people good 
and simple, who knew not before what war was;" and 
there they broke into private houses like an army of 
locusts in a rice field, devastating all they found before 
them. The same old writer before quoted says : " They 
9 



130 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

carried off everything. The country was very full and 
gay, the rooms adorned with carpets and draperies, the 
caskets and chests full of fair jewels. But nothing was- 
safe from these robbers." All this made the English 
dreaded and detested, and the inhabitants would not 
tell them anything about King John's movements, so 
that the Black Prince suddenly found himself within 
fighting distance of the French army near Poitiers, in the 
very neighborhood where great battles had taken place 
centuries before.* The French had a very large army, 
and the Prince a very small one, but he was a consum- 
mate general, and it is harder to manage a great number 
of men than a smaller one. To avoid the battle, the 
Prince offered to restore all his conquests, provided he 
and his soldiers might retire unharmed to Bordeaux;, 
but John the Foolish, in the pride of numbers and vain- 
glory, would accept nothing less than the unconditional 
surrender of the entire army. "I will never be taken 
prisoner but with sword in hand ! " was the answer. 
"God defend the right!" 

The Prince chose his ground, as his father had done' 
at Cressy, with great skill, and his superior tactics won 
the day. King John, fighting bravely to the last, was 
taken prisoner with his youngest son. The number of 
Frenchmen killed and wounded did not fall short of 
10,000 men. This was in 1356, just ten years after the 
battle of Cressy. 

The Black Prince treated his royal captive with great 
respect, waiting upon him at table with the utmost 

* One between Clovis and the Visigoths, 507, and another be- 
tween Charles Martel and the Saracens, 732. The latter is 
commonly called the battle of Tours. 



THE BLACK PRINCE. 131 

humility, and saying that it did not become him, as 
a subject, to sit at table with a king. When they 
arrived in London, and the brilliant procession passed 
through the streets, the king of France was mounted on 
a superb white horse, while the prince, his conqueror, 
rode by his side on a little black pony; all which must 
have been vastly consoling to King John. The mon- 
arch did not show much spirit after his capture, though 
he had fought well in the field. He made a treaty 
with the Black Prince so dishonorable to France that his 
son the Dauphin refused to agree to it, and several years 
were taken up in talking over the matter. At length an 
arrangement was proposed by which the king was set at 
liberty, leaving two of his sons as hostages for the 
ransom. This is called the Treaty of Bretigny (1360). 

France was in no condition to raise the immense ran- 
som demanded, for the whole country was a prey to 
quarrels among the nobles and insurrections among the 
peasants. King John's sons found it dull in England, 
and one of them ran away; all of which decided the 
king to return to that country as a prisoner, remarking 
that though honor was banished from the rest of the 
world, it should be found in the breast of kings. And 
when honor and comfort coincided so completely as 
they did on this occasion, we can not wonder that the 
palace of the Savoy (his London dwelling-place) again 
received its royal inmate, who was entertained there in 
luxury, without a care or any necessity for exertion, 
He did not live long after his return, and was royally 
buried by King Edward. 

David Bruce, who had been a captive since the battle 
of Neville's Cross, was also permitted to go home to raise 



132 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

a ransom, and also returned to captivity when he failed to 
secure it. After eleven years the payment was arranged 
for, and King David went back to his own country to 
finish a weak and discreditable reign. 

The Black Prince was now established at Bordeaux in 
France with a regular court of his own. He married his 
cousin, the "Fair Maid of Kent," with whom he had 
been in love since they were children, though both had 
been married in the interval. And here he might have 
spent a happy, peaceful life, and been king after his 
father's death, but that the passion for military glory led 
him into an expedition which ruined his health, wasted 
his money, and finally sent him home to die in the prime 
of life, to the unspeakable injury of his country. 

There was reigning at this time in Castile (a country 
in Spain) a certain King Pedro, who had deserved and 
obtained the title of "The Cruel." Being opposed by 
his half-brother, Henry of Trastamare (which means 
"from across the sea") he fled to Bordeaux, where he 
was kindly received by the Prince of Wales, who thought 
that a legitimate king, no matter how wicked, should be 
supported against a usurper, no matter how good. He 
promised to go himself into Spain with an army to help 
the cruel Pedro, and as he could not spare enough of his 
own soldiers, he took into his pay some of the "Free 
Companies,"bodies of troops who fought only for plunder, 
owing allegiance to no country in particular, but as ready 
to fight for one as another. They had just been serving 
against this very Pedro, on behalf of Charles the Wise of 
France, son of King John. Pedro promised the Prince 
of Wales to -reimburse whatever money he should spend 
for him; and the prince, too honorable himself to 



THE BLACK PRINCE. 133 

suspect fraud in another person, set out in high spirits 
for Spain. 

He received the treatment he might have expected 
from the wicked brute for whose benefit he had under- 
taken the war. After fighting the battle of Navarete, 
and putting Pedro on his throne again, he asked the latter 
to pay him the money he owed. Pedro kept putting 
him off with excuses, and the prince was forced at last to 
return without getting any satisfaction.* But the evil 
did not end here. Thousands of his men died from the 
excessive heat, and he himself went back to France 
broken in health, deeply mortified at the result of his 
campaign, and loaded with an enormous debt which he 
had no means of paying. The Free Companies, on his 
failure to keep his promises to them, fell to plundering 
the people again. The prince needed, besides, money 
for his own soldiers, and to supply this he imposed the 
always unpopular "hearth-tax" — a certain sum of money 
to be paid by each family, of which his French subjects 
complained bitterly. Every tax is odious which takes as 
much from the poor man as from the rich. The people 
of Guiepne brought the matter before Charles V., who 
summoned Prince Edward to come to Paris and answer 
for his conduct. "Yes, I will come," he replied, "but it 
will be with helmet on head and with sixty thousand men 
at my back!" He did not go, however, for his summer 
in Spain had so broken him down that he could not even 
mount his horse; and both parties, by way of getting 

* It is gratifying to know that this villain of a king at last got 
what he deserved. He was killed in battle by Henry of Trastamare, 
who became king of Castile, was much beloved by his subjects, 
and was the ancestor of Queen Isabella, the friend of Columbus. 



134 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



even with one another, went on inflicting suffering on the 
poor and helpless. 

The prince did not keep up his character for humanity 
and gentleness when he came back from his unfortunate 
expedition. Illness and disappointment had soured his 
temper, and when the town of Limoges, which had re- 
belled against him, was taken by his soldiers, he ordered 
a general massacre of all the inhabitants, including 
women and children, in which three thousand persons 
were killed in cold blood. 

The prince's failing health now obliged him to return 
to England, and he had the mortification of seeing the 
country he had conquered recovered piecemeal by the 
king of France, until at last nothing was left of all that 
had been taken by his father and himself except the cities 
of Bayonne and Bordeaux in Guienne, and the town of 
Calais. Nothing to show for all the misery, the broken 
hearts, the ruined homes, wealth squandered, fair prov- 
inces destroyed, valuable lives lost, — but some useless 
possessions; and all this the consequence of one man's 
ambition ! 

Besides losses abroad, there was trouble at home. The 
barons, taking advantage of the king's increasing age and 
weakness, tried to regain their old power, and to disregard 
the will of the people as expressed in Parliament. The 
prince took the people's part, but at his death (1376) the 
nobility, headed by John of Gaunt, his brother, again 
interfered, and all was undone. The Black Prince was 
buried in the great cathedral at Canterbury, where his 
gauntlets and helmet and leather surcoat, all worn and 
dusty, can still be seen, suspended over the tomb. 

Queen Philippa was now dead, and the king aban- 



THE BLACK PRINCE. 135 

doned himself to the society of a low woman named 
Alice Perrers, who robbed him of everything she could 
lay hands on, and scandalized the whole country by her 
shameless conduct. A year later he died (1377) in the 
sixty-fifth year of his age, having just completed a reign 
•of fifty years. 

We must not, however, let the sad ending of this great 
Teign blind us to the glory of its better days — not only 
military glory, though there was enough of that; but 

" Peace hath her victories, 
No less renowned than War. " 

The grand fourteenth century, of which Edward's reign 
just covered the middle part, saw civilization advancing 
with such strides as it had never yet taken in the nation's 
history. The military achievements of this period have 
been told in a connected series, because they have fixed 
dates, and are in some degree dependent on one another; 
but they are the least important of the events in that 
splendid half- century. 

To Queen Philippa is due the honor of giving an im- 
pulse to English manufactures. Up to this time England 
had exported her wool and received it back in the shape 
of cloth from the looms of the Continent; Philippa en- 
couraged her countrymen, the weavers of Flanders, to 
settle in her adopted country, and thus laid the founda- 
tion of the great manufacturing system which still con- 
tinues a chief source of England's wealth. Manufactures 
lead to commerce, and on this Edward's great mind was 
brought to bear. He is called "The Father of English 
Commerce." The arts, too, flourished. The beautiful 
Windsor Castle rose in its stately magnificence, and New 



136 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

College at Oxford still keeps green the memory of William 
of Wykeham, its architect -bishop. 

Edward III.'s reign may be especially marked as one 
of law. He obeyed the laws himself and taught others 
to respect them; while he never decided anything of im- 
portance without consulting Parliament, which he called 
together no fewer than seventy times. One of the most 
important acts passed by this assembly ordained that 
cases in the law-courts should thenceforth "be pleaded 
in the English tongue;" a proof that the Norman element 
was losing its last hold on England. 

But to the reading world the true glory of Edward's 
reign lies in the fact that England now possessed for the 
first time a national literature. The semi -Saxon dialect 
which until then had formed, with French and Latin, the 
only medium for writing, gave way to something enough 
like modern English for us to understand it. Many of 
its words are now out of date, but we can still read the 
works of Chaucer and of Wycliffe in the language they 
themselves used, without needing to have it translated. 
Chaucer is our first great poet; to Wycliffe we owe the 
first steps in that Reformation carried out a hundred and 
fifty years later by Martin Luther. The names of Lang- 
land, Gower, and Mandeville belong also to this reign, but 
they find a place more properly in the history of literature. 

One institution of Edward's is perhaps more widely 
known than others of greater significance; the establish- 
ment of the "Order of the Garter." The story is that the 
Countess of Salisbury, a beautiful woman much admired 
at court, happened to drop her garter at a ball; where- 
upon the king, to check or prevent rude levity, picked it 
up and bound it round his own knee, saying, "Honi soit 



THE BLACK PRINCE. 137 

qui mal y pense."* And he took occasion from the inci- 
dent to found a society to which kings and emperors are 
proud to be admitted. 

From the time of King John, who had at first stood 
out so boldly against the Pope and then given in so 
weakly, England had paid a yearly tribute to Rome. 
This went on as long as Edward was still a minor ; but 
when he became king he ceased to send it. When the 
Pope threatened him with the terrors of the Church, 
Edward did what he always did when an important matter 
came up — consulted the Parliament about it. They soon 
decided that the Pope had no authority in England, and 
that the tax must never be paid again. The seat of the 
papacy had been changed from Rome to Avignon, and 
the popes for the greater part of that century were mere 
tools of the kings of France, so that the English king had 
a double reason for withholding his tribute. 

One of the acts passed by Edward's Parliaments strikes 
us as rather amusing. So much jealousy of the legal pro- 
fession had arisen that practising lawyers were declared 
incapable of being chosen members of Parliament. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

RICHARD II. WAT TYLER. BOLINGBROKE. 

ICHARD of Bordeaux, son of the Black Prince,, 
became king when Edward ILL died. He was 
only eleven years old, and the government 
naturally fell under the control of his uncles. Several of 

*"Evil to him who evil thinks." 




138 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

these sons of Edward III. play parts so important in 
history that one can not understand it fully without know- 
ing their names. They are given in Shakspeare's play of 
Henry VI. for the same purpose. They were : i, Edward, 
Prince of Wales, father of Richard II.; 2, William, who 
died young; 3, Lionel, Duke of Clarence; 4, John of 
Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; 5, Edmund, Duke of York; 
6, another William, who also died young; 7, Thomas, 
Duke of Gloucester.* 

A Council of Regency was appointed to carry on the 
government while Richard was under age, with the three 
sons of Edward III. who were still living (Nos. 4, 5, and 
7) as its leaders; but the eldest of these, John of Gaunt, t 
soon managed to become the real head. 

The war with France went on, without glory but with 
the usual waste of life and money. War must be paid 
for, and the Parliament laid a new tax which, being de- 
manded from rich and poor alike, bore most heavily on 
those who had but little to pay with. This was a poll-tax 
•of three groats| on each person over fifteen years of age. 
The tax-gatherers were rude and brutal, as might have 
been expected; and when one of them insulted the 
daughter of a laborer, the father struck him dead on the 
spot with the hammer he was using at work. This man 

* Edward III. was the first to introduce into England the title of 
Duke, conferring it upon his own sons. Before that time the highest 
English dignity was that of Earl. 

+ So called because he was born at Ghent in Flanders. The Eng- 
lish made as bad work with Continental names as the Romans did 
with British ones. 

% Equal to about 25 cents of our money, but meaning far more 
than that to the poor workman. 



RICHARD II WAT TYIER. BOIINGBROKE. 139 

whose name was Walter, was called Wat the Tiler,* com- 
monly shortened to Wat Tyler. His friends and neigh- 
bors applauded what he had done, and very soon a gen- 
eral rising among the peasants threatened the country 
with a new danger. Up to this time all civil wars had 
been between the king and the nobles, or among the 
nobles themselves; but here was something the upper 
■classes were quite unprepared for — a rebellion of their 
inferiors. These peasants still held their land partly 
under the old feudal system, which required personal 
service in the place of rent. This placed the tenant at 
the mercy of his landlord, and great dissatisfaction was 
the result. A priest named John Ball, a follower of 
Wycliffe (Froissart calls him "a mad priest," but he had 
a great deal of method in his madness) went about stirring 
up the people to assert their rights as men. "By what 
fight," he said, "do these lords and ladies flaunt in their 
velvet and ermine while we are clothed in rags? They 
have wine and rich food and line wheat bread; we have 
oatmeal and straw to eat and water to drink. They 
have fine houses, and can stay in them; we have wretched 
huts, and must labor in the wind and the rain. And yet 
it is our work that gives them all these good things. 

*When Adam delved and Eve span, 
Where was then the gentleman?" 

It was a kind of socialism not well organized nor wise 
in its methods, yet feeling after its natural rights. The 
killing of the tax-gatherer by Wat Tyler was the spark 

* A man who laid tile roofs. In these disturbances the leaders 
took names from their trades; "Hob Miller" and "Jack Carter" for 
instance. 



140 ' HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

that set the country in a blaze. Everywhere men stopped 
their work and hurried to join the insurgents, who soon 
formed a body a hundred thousand strong and marched 
to London. The great Duke of Lancaster (John of 
Gaunt),who was hated as the representative of aristocracy, 
ran away and took refuge in Scotland. The young king* 
now sixteen years old, showed good sense and spirit. 
The rioters attacked and burned the palace called the 
Savoy, then belonging to John of Gaunt, and the new 
buildings of the lawyers at the Temple. At a personal 
meeting with the boy-king, he asked what they wanted. 
"We want our freedom!" they shouted. "We will that 
there shall be no more serfs!" "You shall have it," 
answered the king; "I promise it." Satisfied with this, 
a large proportion of the mob dispersed and went quietly 
home, carrying with them copies of a precious "emanci- 
pation paper" which thirty clerks had been busy all day 
in writing out. About thirty thousand of them, however,, 
remained in the city with Wat Tyler, to make sure that 
the king's promises were fulfilled. The next day, as 
Richard was riding through the town, he met the chief 
himself, with whom he had a parley. The Mayor of 
London, fearing that the king was in danger, struck Wat 
down with his dagger, and a servant killed him. The 
mob broke out into wild cries for revenge. "What would 
you have, my masters?" asked the young king. "Have 
you lost your leader? I am your king and I will be your 
leader. Follow me." And riding bravely at their head, 
he led them into the open country, where he promised to 
grant their wishes and a full pardon for all offences, upon 
which they dispersed. 

When the king's uncles returned, however, they 



RICHARD II. WAT TYIER. BOIINGBROKE. 141 

refused to abide by what he had done. It was, indeed, 
illegal, for only the land-owners had the right to free 
their bondmen. Still, the promise was made to get 
them to lay down their arms, and should have been 
kept when they had done so. When the question was 
brought before the Parliament, they pronounced the 
king's grants null and void, saying that their serfs were 
their goods, and that no one could take away their 
goods without their consent. "And this consent," they 
remarked, "we have never given and never will give, 
were we all to die in one day." Legally they were 
perhaps right, morally they were wrong, and politically 
they were unwise, because the lower classes would have 
been worth more to their masters as well as to them- 
selves as freemen. The "villains"* did not directly 
gain their object; but the expression of their determina- 
tion drew attention to the subject, and serfdom gradu- 
ally melted away. 

The Council of Regency also came back, and then 
began the work of punishment. It is said that fifteen 
hundred persons were hanged for this outbreak, in spite 
of the king's pardon; a sad example of bad faith in 
these "noble" fugitives! As the friends of these victims 
sometimes cut down the bodies so as to bury them 
decently, the order was given to chain the bodies to the 
gallows, which was the origin of "hanging in chains," so 
long practised in England. 

The king's uncles were restless, intriguing men, who 
allowed him no voice in the government; and he one 

* This name was first given to persons bound to feudal service 
"because their dwellings were built round the villa or castle of their 
lord. 



142 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

day surprised the Duke of Gloucester, whom he espe- 
cially disliked, by asking him in Council, "Uncle, how- 
old am I?" "Your Highness is in your twenty- third 
year," answered the Duke. "Then I am able to man- 
age my own affairs," replied the king. "Gentlemen, I 
am very much obliged to you for the care you have 
given to public duties up to this time, but I shall not 
need your services any longer." From that time Richard 
took the government on himself. 

At first everything went well. The king had some 
years before this married Anne* of Bohemia, called 
"The Good Queen Anne," on account of her kind and 
charitable disposition. At her death, wishing to preserve 
peace with France, he married a child of eight years old,, 
Isabella, the daughter of Charles VI., called "the Little 
Queen." 

One of the frequent invasions of England by Scotland 
at this time resulted in the battle of Otterburn, which 
forms the subject of Chevy Chase, one of the best-known 
of the old English ballads. Both sides claimed the vic- 
tory, the English because the bravest Scot, Lord Douglas,, 
was killed, the Scotch because they took prisoner Henry 
Percy (surnamed Hotspur from his fiery temper), son of 
the Earl of Northumberland. On the whole, the Scots 
had rather the best of it. 

It was not until the last two years of Richard's reign 
that the faults lying concealed in his character began to- 
show themselves. He is accused of causing the death 
of the Duke of Gloucester, whom he had always disliked; 
but a more serious offence was his dispensing with a Par- 
liament and replacing it by a committee dependent on. 

* Pronounced "Ann," not "An-ne." 



RICHARD II. WAT TYLER. BOLINGBROKE. 143 

himself. Forced loans, the sale of pardons, refusing jus- 
tice except on payment of bribes, all followed; but noth- 
ing could supply his boundless extravagance. He is 
said to have employed ten thousand persons in his 
household, three hundred of them being in the royal 
kitchen. We read also of gorgeous apparel, of superb 
furniture, of costly jewels. To crown all, he estranged 
from himself, by caprice and injustice, the most powerful 
subject in the kingdom. 

His cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, son of John of Gaunt^ 
had a quarrel with the Duke of Norfolk, and the king^ 
allowed them to try the "wager of battle." The cham- 
pions are mounted, ready to begin the fight; the king 
and queen, with as many lords and ladies as can gain 
admittance to the raised seats around the lists, are 
in place, the challenge is given and returned, when 
suddenly, just as the spears are in rest and the impatient 
horses- ready to start, the king throws his "warder," or 
sceptre, on the ground and the heralds cry " Stop !" 
This means that there will be no fight that day. Then 
the capricious Richard, without any decision as to which 
is right in the quarrel, banishes his cousin Bolingbroke 
for ten years and the Duke of Norfolk for life.* 

The people had despised the king before; now they 
hated him, for Bolingbroke was their idol. The bitter 
feeling was increased when at John . of Gaunt's death, 
three month's after his son's exile began, Richard seized 
all his vast possessions. Having suddenly determined 
to go to Ireland to put down a rebellion there, he heard 
mass with his little queen, and then, lifting her up in his 
arms, he kissed her, saying, "Adieu, madam, till we meet 

*See Shakspeare's play of "Richard II." 



144 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

again." The people of London said : "Now goeth 
Richard of Bordeaux to his destruction. He will never 
return again with joy, no more than did Edward the 
Second, his great-grandfather, who was foolishly gov- 
erned by too much believing of the Despensers." The 
parallel was remarkably just. Richard had bad luck in 
Ireland; he did not succeed in his expedition, and he 
was detained for several weeks by contrary winds. In 
the meantime, Bolingbroke had arrived on the coast 
of Yorkshire, in England, with an army. Although he 
•declared that he came only to demand his father's 
estates, he marched through the land like a conqueror. 
Towns and castles everywhere opened their gates to 
him. Even the Duke of York, the Regent in Richard's 
absence, went over to him with his soldiers. Richard 
wandered about helplessly from place to place, losing 
strength as his adversary was gaining it, and the arrny 
which a faithful friend had gathered together to help him 
dispersed because "they could hear no tidings of the 
king." The net was closing around him. Betrayed by 
false information, he rode directly into an ambush of his 
enemies, and the Earl of Northumberland took him 
prisoner and lodged him in Flint Castle. 

Bolingbroke was soon on the ground. He met 
) Richard with an appearance of respect, but carried him 
to London and shut him up in the Tower, where he was 
compelled to sign his abdication. Then a Parliament 
was summoned to meet at Westminster Hall for his 
deposition — that very Westminster Hall which he had 
remodelled and beautified, making it very much what we 
see it now- He was accused of the murder of his uncle, 
the Duke of Gloucester, of the execution of several of his 



RICHARD II WAT 'TYLER. B0L1NGBR0KE. 145 

own subjects, and of answering when asked to do justice 
according to the law, "The laws are in my mouth; I 
alone can make and change them ; the life of every one 
of my subjects and his lands and goods are at my will 
and pleasure." It was also charged against him that he 
was "so variable and dissembling that no man living, 
who knew him, could or would trust him." Richard was 
then formally deposed by the parliament; Henry of Lan- 
caster came forward and took the usual oaths, after which 
the archbishops of Canterbury and York led him up to 
the throne, "all the people wonderfully shouting for, 

joy" (1399)- 

During the latter half of the fourteenth century, many 
new ideas had been stirring in the minds of the people. 
It often happens that political and religious reforms go 
hand in hand. The desire for freedom of thought be- 
longs naturally with the demand for other kinds of 
freedom, and the age which produced Wat Tyler's 
rebellion was also the age of John WyclifTe. This 
earliest reformer not only fearlessly exposed the corrup- 
tions of the Church and the avarice and tyranny of the 
Pope, but uttered doctrines declared to be heretical 
— that is, not such as the Church believed. His fol- 
lowers received the name of Lollards, for some reason 
not now understood, and soon became so numerous as 
to form a very important sect. John of Gaunt openly 
sympathized with them, as did the Princess of Wales 
(widow of the Black Prince) and Richard's queen, Anne 
of Bohemia. The poet Chaucer is also supposed to have 
belonged among them. WyclifTe was tried for heresy, 
but received no further harm than being turned out 
of the University of Oxford. His great work lay not 
10 



146 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

< . a 

only in preaching new doctrines and stirring people up 
to purer lives, but in making the first complete transla- 
tion of the Bible into English. The clergy in general 
frowned upon this because it led people to the adoption 
of the Bible, instead of the authority of the Church, as a 
rule of faith; but to the masses it was like cold water to 
a thirsty soul, and it was received with thrilling eager- 
ness and read from one end of the land to the other. 
There were no printed books then, but copies made by 
hand were multiplied through the industry of willing tran- 
scribers until there were few persons in England able to 
read who could not in some way find the means of 
getting at the translation. 

The aristocrats of learning were by no means pleased 
with the new order of things. "Scripture is become 
a vulgar thing," wrote a priest of the day, "more open 
now to men and women who know how to read than it 
was wont to be to clerks themselves."* But in spite of 
all opposition the doctrines of Wycliffe grew and pre- 
vailed. 



* "Vulgar" means common to all; thus the translation of the 
Bible into Latin was called the "Vulgate" because it was in the 
common tongue. "Clerks" (clerics) means here the clergy, who 
had been until this century almost the only persons who had any 
knowledge of books. A learned man of any profession was called 
a clerk. 



J; 




HENRY IV. SHREWSBURY. HENRY V. 147 
CHAPTER XVIII. 

HENRY IV. SHREWSBURY. HENRY V. 

ENRY IV. was a usurper in a double sense ; for 
not only had he supplanted Richard, the 
reigning king, but he had taken the place 
of the heir presumptive.* This was a grandson of 
Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III. 
Lionel's daughter, Philippa, had married the Earl of 
March, a descendant of Roger Mortimer, and their son, 
Edmund Mortimer, was the lineal successor to Richard II. 
But he was a child only seven years old, and the English 
Parliament exercised its right in passing him over and 
bestowing the crown on his cousin, the Duke of 
Lancaster. 

But little is known of the fate of the unfortunate 
Richard II. It is certain that he was kept a prisoner 
for several months, being removed from the Tower in 
London to Pontefract (Pomfret) Castle. A conspiracy 
being formed to replace him on the throne, Henry IV. 
settled the matter by causing him to be murdered, and 
then exhibiting his body in London so that there could 
be no question as to the fact of his death. As has often 
happened in such cases, a report arose that Richard had 
escaped, some other dead body being shown as his; but 
there is no doubt that his life, as well as his crown, was 
sacrificed to Henry's ambition (1400). 

* A person who will succeed to the crown if no one shall be born 
having a better right. "Heir-apparent" is the person who will 
succeed unless he dies before the reigning sovereign. 



148 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

The poor little widow-queen was sent home to France 
(without her jewels and her dower), and for seven years 
refused all offers of marriage; but was at last induced 
to wed the Duke of Orleans, brother of the king of 
France, and the finest French poet of his time, who has 
left some charming verses about her, entitled (in the 
English translation), "The Fairest Thing in Mortal 
Eyes." 

The early years of Henry's reign were stained by a 
persecution of the Lollards, who had now become a 
numerous and powerful sect. William Sawtry, a clergy- 
man, was burnt alive for heresy, being the first person to 
suffer death in England for this cause. Other forms of 
punishment were used, such as imprisonment, branding 
on the cheek, and whatever tortures might be supposed 
to lead men to repent of thinking differently from those 
around them; and for a time the so-called "heresy" 
apparently died out, to reappear in the next century 
as the doctrine of the English church and the law of 
the land. 

The most notable feature of Henry IV. 's reign was a 
series of conspiracies against him, which seemed to those 
about him a judgment on his unjust dealings with his 
predecessor, Richard. The first one, already mentioned, 
was put down with great severity, all the persons con- 
cerned in it being executed for treason; but the sub- 
sequent plots were more wide-spread, and ended in 
an appeal to arms. 

The conspirators represented the three countries which 
make up the island of Great Britain. The Earl of Nor- 
thumberland and his son Harry Percy (the " Hotspur" 
of Otterburn), headed the disaffected English; the Earl 



HENRY IV. SHREWSBURY. HENRY V. 149 

of Douglas brought an army of Scots, and a Welshman 
named Owen Glendower, who was trying to make his 
country once more independent of England, had raised 
a large force in Wales. There had lately been a battle 
with the Scots at Homildon Hall, where the Earl of 
Douglas had been made prisoner by Hotspur, and the 
latter gave him his liberty that they might together make 
common cause against the enemy. 

The three armies were to meet at Shrewsbury, but 
Henry was too quick for them. He attacked the forces 
before Glendower came up, and while Northumberland 
with a part of his command was still on the way, and 
gained a complete victory. He and his son Henry, 
Prince of Wales, fought desperately; the brave Hotspur 
was killed, and Douglas taken prisoner. Henry did not 
show a revengeful spirit after his victory. Some of the 
principal offenders were beheaded, but the Earl of 
Northumberland was pardoned, and a general amnesty 
was issued to the common soldiers. 

In Shakspeare's two plays of Henry IV., we find 
all these circumstances treated in the most picturesque 
manner. He is not always correct as to details, but he 
gives the spirit of the age, and we remember the facts 
better if we read the plays after studying the history. 

It was not long before Northumberland was again 
engaged in a plot against the king, this time in the com- 
pany of Scroop, Archbishop of York, who had been 
a party to the previous rebellion. This time the rebels 
were put down without a battle, and the king, determined 
to make an enduring example, had the archbishop exe- 
cuted. Northumberland escaped, and was afterward 
killed in battle. Henry sent to the Pope the armor 



150 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

worn by Archbishop Scroop, with the scriptural message . 
"This have we found; know whether it be thy son's coat 
or no." 

The lawless character of the time is shown in the cap- 
ture of a Scottish ship (in time of peace) having on 
board the young Prince James of Scotland (afterward 
James I.), whom his father was sending to France 
to keep him out of the way of enemies at home. Henry 
took possession of this boy of eleven years old, who was 
kept for nineteen years a prisoner in England. He 
received an education suitable to his high position, and 
was kindly treated, according to the ideas of the time; 
but he would have preferred his liberty. 

Henry IV. was not an old man when he died, but 

since he became king he had led a hard life. Shakspeare 

makes him say: 

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." 

Plots and surprises and disappointments at home had 
been his food for the first nine years of his reign, while 
the wars with France and Scotland were a continual 
tainted seasoning for the rest of it. He had lost the 
popularity which he enjoyed while his people were yet 
groaning under the oppression of Richard II., and stood 
in a manner alone. England prospered under his gov- 
ernment, and, as is the case with many kings whose title 
is questionable, the knowledge that the hereditary claim- 
ant was still living and might at any time succeed in 
overturning his precarious seat, made him careful to keep 
strictly within the laws and on good terms with Parliament 
— a circumstance favorable to the belief that those gov- 
ernments are best which depend entirely on the consent 
of the governed; that is, are elective and not hereditary. 



HENRY IV. SHREWSBURY. HENRY V. 151 

Henry IV.'s relations with his oldest son, the "Prince 
Hal" of Shakspeare, have been the subject of much dis- 
cussion. The poet, following some of the chronicles, 
makes the prince wild and dissipated, but this is by no 
means proved. It is possible, however, that his father's 
jealousy may have shut him out from any active share in 
the government. 

Henry IV. had long cherished a desire to visit 
Jerusalem and see for himself the holy sepulchre, a 
journey to which was supposed to do so much toward 
atoning for the sins of a life-time; but the cares of state 
did not permit it. In the last years of his life he was 
subject to epileptic fits, and one of them came on while 
he was at his devotions in the chapel of Edward the 
Confessor, at Westminster. He was carried into a room 
in the abbot's house near by, and on coming to himself 
asked where he was. "In the Jerusalem Chamber," was 
the answer. "I always wanted to die in Jerusalem; now 
I shall have my wish," said the king, and soon afterward 
passed away, in the forty-sixth year of his age and the 
fourteenth of his reign (141 3). 

Henry IV. had some fine qualities; he was prudent, 
energetic, and just in the administration of the laws, and 
if he had acquired the crown in the regular course 
of things, he might have been one of the favorites among 
English kings. 

Henry V., called from the place of his birth, Henry of 
Monmouth, came to the throne in the flush of youthful 
vigor and national popularity. If any unworthy actions 
or qualities had ever been attributed to him, they had long 
been forgotten. He was now twenty-five years old, 
handsome, courteous, good-humored, well educated, and 



152 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

trained in all soldierly exercises.* His first acts showed 
a generous spirit. The Earl of March (the true heir to 
the throne in the eyes of many of the people) was set free 
from imprisonment and treated with the greatest kindness. 
Henry obtained the release of young Percy, Hotspur's 
son, who had long been a prisoner in Scotland; and he 
had the body of Richard II. removed from its unhonored 
grave and interred with royal state in Westminster Abbey. 
The horrid persecution of the Lollards, shame to say,, 
went on under his sanction. 

In spite of burnings and brandings, the Lollards in- 
creased in number and boldly defied the laws which 
sought to silence them. For some years an irregular war- 
fare was kept up against them on the ground of their 
being dangerous to the State as well as to the Church,, 
and many of them suffered death. Their leader, Sir John 
Oldcastle (Lord Cobham) after escapes, reprieves, and 
many adventures, finally suffered a horrible death, t being 
suspended by an iron belt over a slow fire, and thus 
roasted to death (141 8). 

* There is a statement that when one of his boon companions was. 
brought before Chief- Justice Gascoigne for some offence, the prince 
went with him, and on the judge's refusal to release the prisoner 
struck him in the face. Upon this Gascoigne committed the prince 
for contempt of court, and sent word to his father that he had done 
so. The young man went to prison with a good grace, and Henry's 
only comment on the circumstance was, " Happy is the king who 
has a judge so firm in the performance of duty, and a son so willing 
to submit to the law. " It is a good story, whether true or not. 

It may interest our young readers to know that Richard Whit- 
tington, famous for the clever story that some one invented about 
his cat, was Lord Mayor of London in Henry IV's time. 

tThe official record says that he was "sweetly and modestly" con- 
demned to be burnt alive. 



HENRY IV. SHREWSBURY. HENRY V. 15& 

A grim corner in the Archbishop of Canterbury's 
palace at Lambeth is still called "The Lollards' Tower," 
and in the centre of one of its rooms may be seen a round 
post to which, it is said, the prisoners were bound while 
suffering torture. 

We turn from these horrors to the other events of 
Henry's short reign. He was as ambitious as his great 
grandfather, Edward III., and like him found a promising 
field in the fair provinces ot France, now distracted by a 
civil war, and always tempting to the invader. His 
reasoning was, "If my ancestors had a right to France, so 
have I." (He ignored the other alternative: "If my 
ancestors had not, so have not I.") Perhaps he really 
persuaded himself that France would be a great deal 
better off under his rule than torn by factions, the poor 
crazy king and wicked queen and selfish nobles quarrel- 
ing among themselves for the government. The Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury encouraged him, in order, it is said, 
to keep him from inquiring into the abuses of the Church;, 
while Henry himself is charged with wishing to distract 
his people's attention from his own doubtful title. He 
found little difficulty in procuring supplies for his inva- 
sion, for the whole English nation was wild with enthu- 
siasm at the idea of a war of conquest; and his prepara- 
tions were made with great energy. Fifteen hundred o* 
the ships of that day were required to transport an army 
that could now be carried by thirty large steamships; 
and when all was ready, Henry proceeded on his way to 
Harfleur in Normandy. 



y 



154 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

AGINCOURT. TREATY OF TROYES. DEATH OF HENRY V. 

T required a siege of five weeks to take the town 
of Harfleur, in France, and when it was taken 
Henry had serious thoughts of abandoning it 
and going home again. His army was wasted by disease, 
and the French, as he heard, were collecting in great 
numbers to oppose him, but he determined to march to 
his own town of Calais and then decide what it would 
be best to do. 

The French did not get their army together very 
quickly, for they were divided among themselves, and 
the different parties hated each other quite as much as 
they hated the English; perhaps more. When they were 
ready, they sent to ask Henry by what road he intended 
to march. "By the one that will take me straight to 
Calais!" he answered, and sent the messengers away 
with a present of a hundred crowns. He was not going 
out of his way to find the French, nor did he mean to 
refuse to fight if he met them. As they neared the little 
village of Azincourt (which the English have changed to 
Agincourt) they saw the splendid French army waiting 
for them to come up. Henry sent his Welsh squire, Davy 
Gam, to reconnoitre, and asked him how many French 
he saw. "Enough to be killed, enough to be made 
prisoners, and enough to run away," said Davy. 

The English army was in poor condition. Of the 
30,000 men who had sailed from England not more than 
6,000 were now in fighting order, and these were half 



AGINCOURT. TREATY OF TROVES. 155 

starved, and tired with marching. (We have to take the 
English story for these statements of inferior numbers in 
the winning of great victories). The French are said to 
have had 60,000 men. This time the enemy had the 
choice of a position, but they chose their ground badly, 
and thus neutralized the effect of their greater numbers. 
King Henry heard some one saying that he wished ten 
thousand of the stout, idle men in England might be with 
them that day. "Not so, friend," said the king; "The 
fewer we are, the greater glory we shall win. For my 
part, I would not have a single man more." The French 
were in high spirits, and, the chroniclers tell us, spent the 
night before the battle in carousing and playing at cards 
for the prisoners they expected to take. No quarter was 
to be given to the common soldiers; but persons of rank 
were to be held for ransom. The English, on the con- 
trary, had a refreshing sleep, except those who, expecting 
this to be their last night on earth, spent it in devotion. 
When the day of battle came, Henry V., whose neces- 
sity seems to have sharpened his ingenuity, directed that 
each one of the archers should carry, besides his bow and 
arrows, a battle-axe and sword, and a stake pointed at 
both ends. After having discharged their arrows they 
were to drive the stakes into the soft, damp ground with 
their battle-axes, and then fall back and shoot again. The 
stratagem answered its purpose; the French, advancing 
as the English retired, came unexpectedly upon the sharp 
points of the stakes and fell into confusion. The fighting 
was desperate for three hours, both sides doing wonders 
of personal bravery. At the end of that time the unman- 
ageable French army was routed and fled from the field. 
Their heavy armor was their destruction, while the Eng- 



156 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

lish archers, who had thrown off a great part of their 
clothing, moved about so easily from place to place that 
they did frightful execution in the crowded ranks of their 
enemies. 

The French lost in this action, it is computed, not less 
than 11,000 killed, among whom were the flower of their 
nobility. These last are reported to have despised the 
common soldiers, saying, " This battle must be won by 
gentlemen!" On the English side the loss was compara- 
tively small — some writers saying forty men and some 
1600; so we may take our choice. The Duke of Or- 
leans, husband of England's "Little Queen," was one 
of the 14,000 prisoners taken on this occasion, so the 
English had two captive poets at once, Prince James of 
Scotland (afterward James I.) being the best English 
poet of his day, as the Duke of Orleans was the finest 
French one. 

Henry was in no condition to follow up his victory. 
After making a truce with his enemies, he returned 
to England, where he was received with such demon- 
strations of joy as had never before been made for any 
victory. The people could not wait for him to land; 
they rushed into the water and themselves dragged the 
ship to shore; the bells rang like mad; triumphal arches 
were built across the roads, and showers of roses and 
laurel were strewn under the horses' feet; grand lords- 
and ladies, splendidly dressed, filled the windows and 
balconies, and from the highest to the lowest each strove 
with the other which should be most extravagant in. 
expressions of praise. In the midst of all this the king: 
rode quietly along, not looking at all elated, but taking: 
everything soberly, and, as an old writer says, "with 



AGINCOURT. TREATY OF TROVES. 157 

reverent demeanor." Perhaps he was thinking of the 
heaps of dead he had left behind him; perhaps the 
groans of the dying still filled his ears; possibly he was 
wondering how the people would like the burdensome 
taxation necessary for carrying on the war. At all 
•events, he won "golden opinions" for his humility and 
modesty. 

Two years after this, Henry was ready for another in- 
vasion. He was determined to conquer Normandy, the 
old possession of his ancestors, and the English nation 
again willingly contributed the means. In France itself, 
the civil war had reached a pitch of horror probably 
without its equal in the history of any civilized country.* 
The Duke of Orleans (son of the "Little Queen" whose 
husband was taken at Agincourt) headed one party and 
the Duke of Burgundy another, and as each in succession 
got the upper hand, the lawlessness and butchery seemed 
to increase. Henry at once laid siege to Rouen, the 
capital of Normandy, which was defended by its citizens 
until they were starved out. "War has three hand- 
maidens ever waiting on her," said he, " Fire, Blood, and 
Famine ; and I have chosen the meekest maiden of the 
three." During the siege, fourteen thousand country 
people who had taken refuge in the city were thrust out 
to die between the walls and Henry's camp; he would 
do nothing for them. The city at last surrendered, and 
his army was set free for further conquest. 

While the siege of Rouen was yet in progress, the 
treacherous murder of the Duke of Burgundy by a 
follower of the Dauphin Charles (son of the insane king) 

*For a detailed account of these doings, see "A Short History 
of France, " Chapter XIV. 



158 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



as they met for a peaceful conference, threw oil on the 
flame of civil strife. The son of the murdered duke, 
wild for revenge, made an alliance with England, prom- 
ising Henry the sovereignty of France if he would help 
him against the Dauphin. The queen, who hated her 
son, took part with them, and a treaty was concluded at 
Troyes (1420), perhaps the most extraordinary ever 
made by any set of people in their senses. It was 
agreed that Henry V., king of England, should be 
Regent of France as long as Charles VI. lived, and king 
of it at his death, to the exclusion of "Charles, calling 
himself Dauphin," and that he should marry the Princess 
Katherine, the French king's youngest daughter, "with- 
out expense to the said king of France;" that is, he took 
her without a dowry. No wonder that the fair kingdom 
was considered a sufficient dot! The fact that this 
astounding treaty was hailed with joy by the French 
people shows to what misery they had been reduced by 
civil war. They knew Henry to be strong and just, and, 
when not opposed, kind; and they looked for a breath- 
ing-time of peace. The marriage was celebrated at 
once,* and the company hoped for some festivities. 
in the way of tournaments ; but the king had other work 
on hand, and the next morning set out at his usual 
business of besieging cities just as if he had not been 
married at all. He was not, however, entirely indifferent 
to his wife's amusement, for he sent to England for two 
harps, that they might make music together. When all 
the towns in Normandy had opened their gates to him, 

* For an amusing (imaginary) account of the princess and of 
Henry's courtship, see Shakspeare's "Henry V.," Act. III., Sc. 4, 
and Act. V., Sc. 2. 



AGINCOURT. TREATY OF TROYES. 159" 

he went back to Paris to take formal possession of his 
new kingdom. He assured the people (or rather the 
nobles, for "the people" were not to be seen, any more 
than the cart-horses) that he would love and honor the 
king of France, and that the ocean should cease to flow 
and the sun no more give light before he should forget 
the duty a monarch owed to his subjects. There was a. 
splendid feast held. To be sure, the same accounts tell 
us that the poor were dying of starvation by hundreds 
and the streets were full of little children crying aloud 
for bread; but perhaps some crumbs of the feast may 
have fallen to them. As the fountains "ran wine," we 
may hope that more important needs were satisfied 
at the same time. 

And how fared England all this while? It was gradu- 
ally becoming drained, not only of its money, but of its 
men, a more precious possession than money. Those 
of note and ability were crowding into Normandy, 
to settle on the confiscated estates liberally bestowed by 
Henry on his favorites, and there was such great danger 
that England would in time sink into a mere dependency 
of France that it was thought necessary to make special 
laws against this possibility. It was a reversal of the 
situation which existed under William the Conqueror. 
Then the Normans forsook their pleasant land to receive 
as gifts the estates of conquered Saxons; now the de- 
scendants of both deserted their homes in England 
to enrich themselves on the spoils of France. It was 
fortunate for the island country that the conquest was 
not a permanent one. 

Henry now went back to England to obtain a supply 
of money from Parliament. This the Commons granted 



160 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

without hesitation, in order that, as they said, "the cities 
and provinces now in arms against the king being sub- 
dued, France might be entirely annexed to the English 
crown." They also made some provisions to avoid the 
possibility that, on the other hand, England might be 
annexed to the French crown; but they showed their 
confidence in him by giving him all that he desired. 

An anecdote is told of this time which shows that "the 
wager of battle" was not favored by the king. Two men 
having applied to him for permission to fight in single 
combat, their neighbors begged that the request might 
be denied. "No!" said Henry, "they are welcome to 
fight it out ; but if one is killed I shall hang the other for 
murder." It was surely not during this reign that duel- 
ling became again popular. 

Once more did Henry set out for France, with an army 
superbly appointed and in the highest spirits. After 
some months of hard fighting, during which he succeeded 
in driving the Dauphin's army into the South, he was 
cheered by the arrival of Queen Katherine with an infant 
son, born at Windsor Castle. But his career was almost 
over. In the midst of a triumphant campaign he was 
attacked by a mortal disease, and after a short illness 
died at Vincennes, in the thirty-fifth year of his age and 
the tenth of his reign (1422). 

His dying commands were characteristic. He desired 
his brothers on no account to release the Duke of Orleans 
(taken at Agincourt and still a prisoner in England) until 
his own son Henry should be of age, and not to make 
peace with France without obtaining at least Normandy 
for England; and he solemnly declared that it had been 
his intention, as soon as the "troubles" in France were 



AGINCOURT. TREATY OF TROYES. 161 

■over, to undertake a crusade for the recovery of Jerusa- 
lem. So hard was it even at that late day, to let go of 
the old idea. 

There are few characters in history which stand in as 
strong a light as does that of Henry V., and yet it is diffi- 
cult to form an entirely just idea of him. He was the 
idol of his own people, who could not find a fault in him; 
and in France he was in many parts of the country wel- 
comed as a deliverer. Individual instances of cruelty 
must without doubt be charged against him, but it is not 
fair to judge the actions of almost five hundred years ago 
by the standard of today. It seemed, not only to Henry 
but to most of the thinking men in his own country, that 
bis claim on France was a just one; and, this being 
allowed, all else followed as a matter of course. In his 
Tfrivate character he had his full share of virtues; he was 
kind, generous, faithful, considerate of others, and of 
refined tastes. In his public acts he was upright and 
reasonable, and had the strong intellect and clear judg- 
ment which enabled him to form wise plans and to carry 
them out effectually. Shakspeare's play, "Henry V." 
although eulogy from beginning to end, only faithfully 
reflects the feelings universal in Henry's own time. 



11 




162 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

CHAPTER XX. 

HENRY VI. WAR IN FRANCE. JACK CADE. 

BABY of nine months old was now, according to 
the language of the world, king of two mighty 
countries. He received the homage of Parlia- 
ment sitting on his mother's lap; and was formally turned 
over to the care of a governess, Dame Alice Boteler, with 
orders, issued in his own name, "from time to time rea- 
sonably to chastise us, as the case may require." Queen 
Katherine, a frivolous and cold-hearted woman, married 
secretly, soon after her husband's death, a Welsh gentle- 
man named Owen Tudor,* and, as far as appears, cared 
nothing more for her son. 

Henry V.'s next younger brother, John, Duke of Bed- 
ford, a man of great ability and of unblemished character, 
was made regent of France; the second brother, Hum- 
phrey of Gloucester, a rash and hot-tempered person, 
became Protector of England, and Cardinal Beaufort, a. 
half-brother of Henry IV., was appointed personal guar- 
dian of the boy-king. All this was not accomplished 
without much wrangling, which was typical of Henry 
VI.'s whole reign; and the gentlest and most peaceful of 
men, as he turned out to be, grew up amid scenes of con- 
tinual quarreling and bloodshed. 

Charles VI. of France, whose life had been only one 
long scene of misery, survived his great son-in-law but 
two months. He missed the unvarying kindness and 

* The son of Owen Tudor and Katherine was father of Henry 
VII. the first Tudor king of England. 



HENRY VI. WAR IN FRANCE. JACK CADE. 163 

consideration which Henry was almost alone in showing 
him, and dropped into the grave unnoticed except for the 
tears and lamentations of the poor, and the respectful 
attendance of the Duke of Bedford. His worthless queen 
soon sank into the neglect she merited, and died at last, 
unhonored by rich or poor. 

Among the chief mourners at Henry V.'s funeral was 
one whose fate has been the subject of many a romance 
— King James I. of Scotland.* Two years after this he 
was set free on payment of a large ransom, though the 
word "ransom" was not used in the treaty, for fear it 
should raise a question as to his illegal capture. The 
sum demanded was stated to be for his "maintenance" — ■ 
that is, his board, lodging, and education. While in Eng- 
land, he had fallen in love with Jane Beaufort, niece of 
the Cardinal, whom he had first seen when he was a cap- 
tive in Windsor Castle; and his poem called "The King's 
Quair" records the story of his love for her. When he 
went back to Scotland he took her with him as his qneen, 
and the first year's instalment .of the sum to be paid for 
his "maintenance" was remitted as her wedding portion. 

Although the persecution of the Lollards had nearly 
died out by this time, owing to the pressure of other 
matters, one effort of parting rage deserves to be men- 
tioned. At a council held thirteen years before, it had 
been decreed that the body of John Wycliffe should be 
"taken from the ground and thrown far away from the 
burial of any church;" and in 1328 this sentence was 
carried into effect. His body was dragged out from its 
grave in Lutterworth church-yard, burnt to ashes and the 
ashes thrown into a brook. "So," says Fuller, writing 

* See especially Miss Yonge's story of "The Caged Lion." 



164 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

two hundred years later, "they did convey his ashes into 
Avon; Avon into Severn; Severn into the narrow seas 
[i.e. Bristol Channel]; they into the main ocean. And 
thus the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblem of his doc- 
trine, which is now dispersed all the world over." 

All this time the war was going on in France. In a 
general way, the Duke of Bedford was master of northern 
France, and the Dauphin (for so Charles VII. continued 
to be called for many years), of southern France; and in 
order to conquer the latter, it was necessary for the Eng- 
lish to obtain possession of the town of Orleans. It was 
while they were besieging this that the famous "Battle of 
the Herrings" took place. Bedford had sent down a 
quantity of salted herrings, the season being Lent, for the 
soldiers around Orleans. This convoy was met by a 
detachment of the enemy, and, the herring-barrels being 
broken up by the cannon, the fish were scattered over 
the field. The assailants were finally driven away, and 
as many fish as could be collected were shovelled into 
wagons and conveyed to the English camp. 

Meantime the defenders of the city were in danger of* 
famine. They were already put on short allowance, and 
had begun to discuss the question of a surrender, when 
deliverance came to them in an unexpected manner. 

In the village of Domremy on the borders of Lorraine, 
in France, lived a young peasant girl named Jeanne 
Dare, who had been accustomed to spend much time 
alone in the fields, and who fancied that she heard there 
supernatural voices commanding her to free her country 
from the English. Having with great difficulty obtained 
the consent of the Dauphin to take command of a troop 
of soldiers, she dressed herself in shining white armor 



HENRY VI. WAR IN FRANCE. JACK CADE. 165 

and set out on her mission, carrying in her hand a conse- 
crated banner and wearing (never using) a curious old 
sword supposed to have peculiar powers. At the head 
of her band of soldiers she rode boldly into the city of 
Orleans, while a feigned attack of the garrison drew off 
the attention of one part of the English army, and the 
rest stood looking stupidly on, believing her to be a 
witch. A few days later, having succeeded in inspiring 
the French garrison with a portion of her own courage, 
she led them against the English fortifications surround- 
ing the city. The attack was successful; and the enemy 
were so disheartened, and so terrified at the idea of her 
supposed mysterious powers that it was thought it more 
prudent to raise the siege. From this time Jeanne Dare 
(Joan of Arc, in English) is known by the title of the 
Maid of Orleans.* 

In thus delivering the city of Orleans, only half of 
Jeanne's work was done; she was yet to crown the king 
at Rheims. The lazy, selfish Charles VII. had to be 
dragged to the place by the most urgent persuasions; 
but she did get him there at last and he was crowned in 
the old cathedral. Then she begged to be allowed to go 
home and to be once more a simple peasant girl. But 
she was too valuable to be spared, and was forced, sorely 
against her will, to continue in the military service. 

After a while the enthusiasm in regard to her died out, 
especially when it was found that she did not always lead 
the army to victory. It was about two years after her 
first appearance at Orleans that her last battle was fought. 
The French army had been defending the town of Com- 
piegne against the English, and after a fight outside the 

*Or'le-ans; pronounced in three syllables, accentuating the first. 



166 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

walls had hastily retreated within the gates. Among the 
few who did not succeed in getting in was Jeanne. It 
was said that the governor did this on purpose, but it may 
not have been so. She was taken to the Burgundian 
camp (for Burgundy was still in alliance with the English) 
and was afterward given up to the Duke of Bedford for a 
sum of money. As she was only a prisoner of war, and 
could not, in common decency, be punished for defend- 
ing her country against its enemies, the cruel plan was 
devised of turning her over to the bishops to be dealt 
with as a heretic. After a year of suffering from the 
fiendish devices of her tormentors, she was burnt alive in 
the market-place of Rouen; the French bishop of Beau- 
vais and the English Cardinal Beaufort looking on with 
satisfaction. "Jesus!" was the last word that passed her 
lips. 

The miserable, selfish wretch, Charles, king of the 
country for which she had done all this, knew just what 
was going on and did not lift a finger to save her. It has 
been said in excuse that he had never believed in her so- 
called mission. Perhaps not, but he had made use of 
her so long as she served his purpose, and he knew that 
she believed in herself. As for the English — the people 
who had dug up Wycliffe's bones and burned them forty- 
five years after his death, and roasted Lord Cobham 
alive over a slow fire, were not likely to be much moved 
or shamed by the inhuman torture of a helpless French 
peasant.* 

The affairs of the English in France did not get on 
well after this. The Duke of Burgundy deserted them 

* For a full account of poor Jeanne's most interesting story, see 
"A Short History of France, " Chapter XV. 



HENRY VI. WAR IN FRANCE. JACK CADE. 167 

and went back to France, his natural ally; the Duke of 
Bedford died, worn out with hard work at forty-five years 
old; and in 1453 the last English soldier, with the excep- 
tion of the garrison at Calais, was driven from the soil of 
France. 

The Hundred Years' War was at an end. Begun in 
injustice, continued by oppression, revived through ambi- 
tion, it closed in humiliation and disgrace, leaving both 
countries the poorer in men and money and good feeling, 
and the richer in nothing but dear-bought experience. 

We have followed the war in France to its completion, 
but must now go back some ten years to look at the 
affairs of England during that time. King Henry VI. 
had grown up to be a man; a mild-tempered, inoffensive 
person, completely ruled by others, and having no wish 
to act or think for himself. As was unavoidable in such 
a case, the stronger natures about him engaged in per- 
petual warfare for the control of affairs; and of these his 
uncle the Duke of Gloucester (called "the good Duke 
Humphrey) and Cardinal Beaufort were the principal. 

In order to gain the consent of the king of France to 
Henry VI.'s marriage with Margaret of Anjou, the Duke 
of Suffolk, Henry's ambassador, offered to give up the 
provinces of Maine and Anjou, which the English still 
held in that country. Gloucester, of course, disapproved 
of such an unheard of arrangement, and his opposition 
made Margaret his enemy for life. She was a beautiful 
girl of fifteen, and possessed of a spirit and determina- 
tion far beyond her years. She and Suffolk soon formed 
a close intimacy, and the ruin of Gloucester was resolved 
upon. He had before this time been attacked through 
his wife, who was accused of witchcraft. It was declared 



168 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

that she had in her possession a wax figure of the king, 
prepared with magic ceremonies, which she caused slowly 
to melt away before a fire; and that as it diminished the 
king's health and strength were decaying in like propor- 
tion. She was condemned to do penance by walking on 
three different days through the streets of London wrap- 
ped in a white sheet with a lighted taper in her hand, and 
then to be shut up in prison for life. About two years 
after Margaret's arrival in England the Duke of Glouces- 
ter was murdered, as was supposed, by Suffolk's orders;, 
and the queen's minister became so unpopular that to 
save his life, Henry sent him out of the country. As he 
was crossing the water to Calais, a large ship called 
"Nicholas of the Tower," came in sight, hailed Suffolk's 
vessel, and ordered him to come on board. He was 
received with the ominous words, "Welcome, traitor !" and 
lowered into a little boat which carried an executioner, a 
block and a rusty sword. Here he was directed to kneel 
down, with the assurance that he should be fairly dealt 
by; and with half a dozen blows of the sword his head 
was cut off, after which his body was cast ashore on 
Dover sands.* 

One more outbreak of lawless violence closes this part 
of our history. The common people of Kent, under a 
leader called Jack Cade, rose in rebellion against the 
wretched misgovernment which prevailed throughout the 
country, and in the "complaint" which they presented 
to the Royal Council, we notice a remarkable difference 
from the demands of Wat Tyler's time. There is no 
question now of villainage or serfage; Lollardism is not 

* For a poetical account of these circumstances, see Shakspeare's- 
play of "King Henry VI." Second Part, first three acts. 



HENRY VI. WAR IN FRANCE. JACK CADE. 169 

even mentioned; the cry is only for less wasting of the 
public money, for freedom of elections, and for a change 
of ministers. The council would not listen to the "com- 
plaint," and the rioters gained a victory over the royal 
forces at Sevenoaks, in Kent, after which they proceeded 
to London and there committed excesses enough in a 
month to send the whole 20,000 to the gallows if it had 
been worth while. Their leader, a low Irishman, took 
the name of Mortimer, claiming some connection with 
the royal family, though sometimes calling himself Jack 
Amend-all; he put on the clothes of a nobleman whom 
the rioters had killed, and paraded through London with 
a gilt helmet and a blue velvet gown over his armor, 
calling out "Mortimer is now lord of this city." His men 
attacked the Tower, taking from it Lord Say, the minister 
most disliked, who had been sent there for safety, 
and, after dragging him through the streets, struck off 
his head. Unlike the rebels under Wat Tyler, these 
began to plunder the city; and the government becom- 
ing thoroughly alarmed offered a reward for Cade's 
head, which was soon brought to them, after which the 
rebels dispersed.* 

In 1453, the year of the abandonment of France, King 
Henry, who had always been weak, was seized with some 
strange disease which reduced his mind to total inactivity, 
while physically he seemed in good health. This singular 
state lasted for about fifteen months, when he suddenly 
recovered, but knew nothing that had passed in the in- 
terval. His mental condition encouraged another claim- 
ant to the crown, and for thirty years to come England 

* There is a vivid description of this uprising in Shakspeare's 
Second Part of "King Henry the Sixth," Act IV. 



170 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

was a scene of conflict between the rival families of York 
and Lancaster. 

Henry VI.'s so-called reign lasted nearly forty years; 
about three-quarters of it is covered by the war with 
France; then comes Jack Cade's rebellion; and the re- 
maining part is occupied by that great quarrel so unnec- 
essary and so destructive, called the Wars of the Roses. 




CHAPTER XXI. 

THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 

HE Wars of the Roses have been well called 
"England's great business in the fifteenth cen- 
tury." This being the case, in studying the 
history of that century, we must try to understand the 
state of things which led to this "business." 

The three kings who came after Richard II., namely, 
Henry IV., Henry V., and Henry VI., were descended 
from John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and are there- 
fore called Lancastrians. Now all this time, the York 
branch had, by the rule of primogeniture,* a better right 
to the throne. The Parliament, however, (and the old 
Witanagemot before it) had always claimed the right of 
deciding who should be king of England, and therefore 
when it set aside Edmund Mortimer, of the York line, 
and crowned Henry of Lancaster (Henry IV.), expected 
-to settle the matter once for all. And there might have 
been a succession of Lancastrian kings to this day if all 

* The right of the first-born to inherit. 



THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 171 

the sovereigns had been made after the pattern of Henry 
IV. and Henry V. But with an incapable king and a 
-wretchedly misgoverned nation came a temptation to the 
Duke of York to take matters into his own hands and 
•claim a crown which would certainly have been his but 
for the decision of the Parliament. 

Richard, Duke of York, was a man of mark. He was 
brave, able, kindly in disposition, and moderate in action. 
He had already filled the high post of Protector during 
the king's illness, and was through that favorably known 
to the nation at large. With the king's recovery had 
■come new ministers, and York, bringing forward accusa- 
tions of misgovernment against them, demanded reforms. 
Gentle King Henry VI. said, when he came to himself 
after his fifteen months of darkness, that "he was in 
charity with all the world, and so he would that all 
the lords were." The lords, however, were very far 
from being in charity with each other. The most of 
them were selfish, avaricious, jealous, grasping after 
power; the welfare of the country being the last thing 
that interested them. As was natural in the days when 
a man of high position kept in his pay bands of armed 
retainers, the different factions soon came to open 
fighting; and the first battle between the Yorkists 
and the Lancastrians was fought at St. Albans, May 
22d, 1455. 

If the Duke of York (who had gained the victory, but 
Tiad as yet made no claim to the crown) could have 
looked forward to the events of the next thirty years, 
would he have assembled that body of soldiers " to pro- 
tect himself against his enemies"? Such a prophetic 
vision would have shown him his own gory head set up 



172 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

over the gate of his city of York; three of his four sons 
dying violent deaths; eighty princes of the royal blood' 
and almost all the ancient nobility falling on the battle- 
field or through revenge of the party at the moment in 
power, and not less than a hundred thousand men 
of lesser note giving up their lives in twelve pitched- 
battles — and all for what? Surely, he would have 
drawn back in awe from the fearful picture, and sac- 
rificed even what he called his rights rather than be 
the author of so much misery. 

It was not until three years after the battle of SL 
Albans that the Duke of York brought forward his claim 
to the throne. Up to this time he had professed the ut- 
most loyalty to King Henry. But in 1458, what the city 
chronicler calls " a dissimulated unity and concord " was 
brought about, and all the rivals went together to old St. 
Paul's Cathedral, where the queen and the Duke of York 
walked hand in hand, and the worst enemies promised 
to make up and be friends. The next year, however,, 
the fighting began again. 

It is not worth your while to learn the names of all the 
battles in this confusing war, so we will notice only the 
important ones. In the battle of Northampton, the EarL 
of Warwick, the most powerful nobleman in the kingdom,, 
appeared on the Yorkist side. He is said to have fed 
30,000 persons daily at his various castles, and is called 
" the king-maker " from his achievements in setting up 
and pulling down kings. Queen Margaret fled after the 
battle, but her husband was taken prisoner and con- 
ducted to London. A Parliament was called at which 
it was decided that King Henry should keep the crown 
during his life-time, and that at his death it should go to 



THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 173 

the true heir, the Duke of York. The king showed 
a gleam of spirit when the decision was made which 
left out of the question the rights of his son. " My 
father was king," he said; "his father also was king; 
I myself have worn the crown forty years from my 
cradle ; you have all sworn fealty to me as your 
sovereign, and your fathers have done the like to mine. 
How, then, can my right be disputed?" His was per- 
haps the right, but the other side had surely the might, 
and he was obliged to submit. 

There was one person who had no intention of sub- 
mitting, and that was Margaret of Anjou, who raised an 
army of 20,000 men and defeated the duke at Wakefield, 
near York, He himself was killed in the action. It is 
said that the queen had his head cut off, crowned with a 
paper crown, and set on one of the gates of York. She 
was a woman whom success made mad. After the battle 
of Wakefield, she gave permission to her army to plunder 
the northern counties, and they availed themselves of it 
to the full. Churches, monasteries, and private dwell- 
ings went down before them, and Margaret's name 
became detested throughout the north. To the credit 
of the time it must be said that this was the only 
instance of its kind during the war. 

In the second battle at St. Albans, Queen Margaret 
was victorious. We have now one of those strange 
contradictions with which these wars are filled. The 
Duke of York's eldest son, the Earl of March, who had 
taken command of the army after his father's death, went 
at once to London, and then, as if the battle had been a 
victory for him, was proclaimed king at Westminster 
under the title of Edw r ard IV., the Parliament consenting, 



174 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and the people filling the air with joyous acclamation s„ 
March 4th, 1461. 

This date is generally considered to mark the end of 
Henry the Sixth's reign. He lived for ten years longer ; 
sometimes hiding away from his enemies, sometimes im- 
prisoned by them; always the same gentle, patient spirit, 
hating the bloodshed and cruelty of which he was made 
the central figure, but powerless to prevent them. He 
had never been popular with the people, who could 
better appreciate military talent than saintly piety, and 
who readily adopted as a leader the spirited young son 
of York. Edward IV. was now in his twentieth year. 

Queen Margaret, still struggling desperately for her 
husband and her son, soon collected another army, and 
with these gave Edward battle at Towton, in Yorkshire. 
Edward issued orders to his soldiers to give no quarter. 
A whole long day and night and far into the next day did 
the cruel fight go on. At last the Lancastrians began to 
give way; their enemies followed, slaying without pity, 
and when the fight was over, more than thirty thousand 
Englishmen lay dead on English ground, killed by their 
own countrymen. There has been no other such battle 
in England, before or since. 

At the next Parliament called by Edward IV., Henry 
and Margaret and all who adhered to them were de- 
clared traitors, and the crown settled on the family, 
of York. The king was crowned at Westminster; his^ 
next brother, George, was made Duke of Clarence, and 
the youngest, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. A fourth 
son, the Earl of Rutland, a boy of fourteen, had been 
killed in cold blood after the*battle of Wakefield by "the 
black Lord Clifford." Queen Margaret went twice to- 



THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 175 

France, to ask help from her cousin, the crafty and 
selfish Louis XI. He gave her fair words, but very little 
assistance, and she had the mortification of seeing 
Edward's ambassadors received with distinction. When 
in England she wandered about with her husband and 
her little son, always the same energetic woman, in 
prosperity or adversity. After one of her battles, she 
was going through a forest with her child when she was 
attacked by a band of robbers, who took away her 
money and jewels. While they were quarrelling over 
the division of the booty she slipped off, and was flying, 
faint with hunger and weariness, when she saw another 
robber approach, who, she supposed, belonged to the 
same band. The idea came to her of throwing herself 
upon his generosity, and going loftily up to him she said, 
"Here, my friend, is the son of your king. I trust him 
to your loyalty." The man was won by her confidence,, 
and guided her and the boy to a place of safety. 

After the battle of Hexham, Margaret became once 
more a fugitive, and Henry was carried a prisoner to 
London, led three times around the pillory on horseback 
with his feet tied to the stirrups, and then thrust into the 
Tower. At the same time, Edward sated his vengeance 
with the punishment of the Lancastrian nobility. Execu- 
tions followed one another with frightful rapidity, and the 
ruin of the whole party seemed to be at hand when 
affairs took another turn. The great Earl of Warwick 
had been so long used to being the first man in the king- 
dom that he had forgotten that other people could have 
wills as well as himself, and now as the royal family were 
reaching an age when it was time for them to be married,, 
he made plans for them as if he had been their guardian. 



176 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Having arranged several suitable marriages for them in 
his own mind, he was much offended when he found that 
the king had secretly married Elizabeth Woodville, the 
widow of a Lancastrian knight, Sir John Grey, and was 
loading her relations with wealth and honors. At the 
same time, Edward was unwise enough to show himself 
unfriendly toward the Earl of Warwick and his brothers ; 
and the earl in a fit of disgust went over to Margaret's 
side, taking with him the Duke of Clarence, King Ed- 
ward's brother. 

Clarence was a most miserable creature; false, weak, 
dissipated, and treacherous; but he made a useful tool 
for Warwick's purpose. The king -maker had no son to 
inherit his vast estates, but he had two daughters, one of 
whom he married to this same Duke of Clarence, and 
the other to Prince Edward, son of Henry VI. and Mar- 
garet of Anjou. Clarence changed sides three or four 
times, and the end of it was that he and Warwick at 
length got up a great army, with the help of the king of 
France, and marched to London with the joyful cry, long 
unheard, "God bless King Henry!" 

The hapless Henry had been a prisoner in the Tower 
four years when this change came in his fortunes. Those 
who went to bring him out to ride through the streets as 
king "found him nought worshipfully arrayed as a king, 
and nought so cleanly kept as should beseem such a 
prince. They had him out and new arrayed him, and 
did to him great reverence;" and for a while he was king 
again. Edward fled to Holland, so poor that he was 
obliged to pay for his passage with a fur-lined gown, 
promising to do more for the captain when he should be 
better off. He was soon again in England, however, and 



THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 177 

the battle of Barnet was fought; Warwick the king-maker 
-was slain, and the poor dethroned Henry was led back 
to the Tower. 

Margaret made one more effort. She was collecting 
an army, with good prospects of success, when Edward 
surprised her at Tewkesbury, before she could effect a 
junction with a large force, promised her under the Earl 
of Pembroke. The Lancastrians were completely de- 
feated. Queen Margaret and her son were taken pris- 
oners (147 1 ). The young Edward, son of Henry of Lan- 
caster, was brought to the Yorkist King Edward, who 
asked roughly how he dared to take up arms against him. 
The prince boldly answered that he came to recover his 
own and his father's inheritance. At this the king bru- 
tally struck him on the face with his iron gauntlet, and the 
Yorkist lords standing by, — the accounts say the king's 
brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was one of them — 
thrust their daggers into his heart. The unhappy mother 
was sent to the Tower, but she did not see her husband. 
The chronicler says, " That night, between eleven and 
twelve of the clock was King Henry put to death, the 
Duke of Gloucester and divers of his men being in the 
Tower. And on the morrow he was chested and brought 
to Paul's, and his face was open, that every one might see 
him."* Margaret of Anjou had made a brave fight, but 
she was conquered. She was kept for five years a pris- 
oner in the Tower, and then her cousin Louis XL, king 
of France, ransomed her for 50,000 crowns, and took care 

*"Ye towers of London, England's lasting shame, 
With many a foul and midnight murder fed, 
Revere his consort's faith, his father's fame, 
And spare the meek usurper's holy head ! " — Gray. 
12 



178 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

of her for the rest of her life. In Scott's novel, "Anne of 
Geierstein," the unhappy woman appears again on the 
scene; "neither wife, mother, nor England's queen." 




CHAPTER XXII. 

EDWARD IV. THE LITTLE PRINCES IN THE TOWER. 

HE battle of Tewkesbury ends the first part of 
the Wars of the Roses. The White Rose was 
supreme. The hunted Lancastrians fled in all 
directions, many of them in extreme poverty. A wounded 
man writes to his mother from his hiding-place to beg for 
some money, "for, by my troth," he says, "my leechcraft 
and physic and rewards to them that have kept me have 
cost me since Easter-day more than five pounds, and now 
I have neither meat, drink, clothes, leechcraft, nor 
money." Philip de Comines, the statesman, soldier, and 
historian, says that he saw the Duke of Exeter, in Flan- 
ders, barefoot and begging his bread from house to house, 
and that other great English lords whom he mentions- 
were in greater misery than common beggars. Strange 
to say, the Wars of the Roses produced very little effect 
on the prosperity of England.* 

* De Comines, the Flemish writer quoted above, whom Macaulay 
calls one of the most enlightened statesmen of his time, says, "Eng- 
land has this peculiar grace, that neither the country, nor the people 
nor the houses are wasted, destroyed or demolished. " He says the 
calamities of war fall only upon the soldiers, and especially on the 
nobility. "In my opinion, in all the countries in Europe the gov- 
ernment is nowhere so well managed, the people nowhere less ob- 
noxious to violence and oppression, nor the houses less liable to the 
desolations of war than in England. " 



EDWARD IV. PRINCES IN THE TOWER. 179 

A traveller gives us a peep into the court -life of that 
day. "A great lord from Bohemia," we are told, was 
allowed to sit in a corner of the queen's dining-room 
while she ate her dinner, and gives an account of the 
ceremony. "The queen sat on a golden stool alone at 
her table, and her mother and the king's sister stood far 
below her. And when the queen spoke to one of those 
they kneeled down before her, and remained kneeling 
until the queen drank water. And all her ladies, and 
even great lords, had to kneel while she was eating, which 
continued three hours." One can scarcely wonder that 
the king escaped from such wearisome slavery as this, 
and indulged his own tastes elsewhere; and vicious tastes 
they were. There was, however, a nobler side to Edward's 
reign. As Edward III. a hundred years before, had been 
the patron of Chaucer, so Edward IV. was the patron of 
William Caxton. It was a happy day for England when 
the first printing-press was set up at Westminster by Cax- 
ton (1474). The mariner's compass, too, had now come 
into general use, and ships no longer needed to feel their 
way, as of old. 

The workmen of that time were obliged to be indus- 
trious, whether they would or not. For six months in 
the year, from March to September, every laborer and 
tradesman must be at his work before five in the morn- 
ing, and must not depart until between seven and eight 
in the evening. During this time he could have half an 
hour each for breakfast and dinner, and an hour for his 
"noon-meat." From May to August he was to have 
half an hour of the day-time for sleep. The law took 
much note of the working men. The "Statute of 
Apparel" forbade their wearing any clothing that cost 



180 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

more than two shillings "the broad yard." They could 
wear no furs nor scarlet cloth, and only such persons as 
had ^20 a year might wear damask or satin or gilt 
girdles. Of a piece with these regulations were those 
relating to commerce. The Duke of Burgundy ordered 
that all woollen cloths wrought in England should 
be banished out of the lands of the said Duke; and 
Edward, finding that this took away the foreign market 
from his cloth-weavers, forbade the bringing into Eng- 
land of anything made within the dominions of the 
Duke of Burgundy. These two acts are among the 
earliest developments of that part of our political system 
which is called "protection to home industry." 

King Henry VI. took great interest in learning.* He 
founded at Eton a school, still in existence, where boys 
prepare for the universities; and he planned a college at 
Cambridge which, if he had been able to carry out his 
idea, would have been one of the grandest in the world. 
The exquisite chapel, which, two centuries later, Sir 
Christopher Wren, the great architect, used to go once a 

*An anecdote which shows the taste of the time is related by 
Anthony a Wood, an English antiquary who lived in the seven- 
teenth century. During the wars of the Roses, scholarship was at so 
low an ebb that learned men were sometimes obliged to beg their 
bread from door to door. Two of these, we are told, came to the 
castle of a nobleman who, understanding from their credentials that 
they had a taste for poetry, commanded his servants to take them to 
a well, to put one into the one bucket and the other into the other 
bucket, and let them down alternately into the water, and to con- 
tinue that exercise till each of them had made a couplet of verses on 
his bucket. After they had endured this discipline for a considerable 
time, to the great entertainment of the baron and his company, they 
made their verses, and obtained their liberty. 



EDWARD IV. PRINCES IN THE TOWER. 181 

year to look at, was the only part finished by Henry. 
Queen's College, also at Cambridge, had two queens for 
its founders who bore no love to one another; Margaret 
of Anjou and Elizabeth Woodville, queen of Edward IV. 

The charming art of letter-writing was cultivated most 
successfully during this period by the Paston family, 
of whom all, father, mother, sons, and daughters wrote 
frequent letters to one another, which, fortunately for us, 
have been preserved. They talk in these letters about 
all sorts of things, public as well as private, and some of 
our most important information comes from this source. 
In studying of times when there were no newspapers, 
such records are invaluable. 

The twelve years of Edward's reign after the battle ot 
Tewkesbury were, fortunately, uneventful ones. He 
roused himself once sufficiently to invade France, but 
was bought off by Louis XI. at the Treaty of Pequigny. 
The money for this expedition he raised by means of 
forced loans (never repaid), humorously called "Benevo- 
lences." 

A more tragic occurrence than the French war took 
place at home. Edward in some way became suspicious 
of his brother George, the "false, fleeting, perjured 
Clarence," as Shakspeare calls him, and had him tried 
by Parliament and sentenced to death. The sentence 
was carried out so secretly that no particulars have ever 
been known. The old story that the miserable, drunken 
creature, being desired to choose the manner of his 
death, said he would be drowned in a cask of Malmsey 
wine, is a pure invention. 

Edward IV. was just preparing for another invasion of 
France when he died, at forty-two years of age, worn out 



182 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

with dissipation. He had been king of England for 
twenty-two years. He was the first to reestablish that 
kind of despotism which shows itself in governing by 
one man's will, disregarding the will of the people. It 
had been practised by the Normans and the early 
Plantagenets, but for almost two hundred years circum- 
stances had favored an approach to government by 
representatives. It was two centuries later before the 
question was set at rest, never again to be opened. 

Edward IV. left two sons, Edward V., not yet thirteen, 
and Richard, Duke of York, about eleven years of age. 
Besides these there were five daughters. At the time of 
his father's death, the young king Edward was in Wales 
with his uncle, Lord Rivers, who was called the most 
accomplished nobleman in England. Edward IV. had 
left his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, regent of 
the kingdom, and the first use Richard made of his 
power was to arrest Lord Rivers and the queen's son, 
Lord Grey, and have them thrown into prison. He 
then himself took charge of the young Edward and 
brought him to London. 

The queen dreaded her brother-in-law more than any- 
thing else in the world; and when Richard, putting off 
Edward V/s coronation, had himself made Protector (a 
title implying much more power than that of regent), she 
was so terrified that she took refuge in the Sanctuary at 
Westminster* with her daughters and her younger son. 
Richard obliged her to give up her son, and then 
secured Lord Hastings, who he found could not be 
bought by any bribes. He called a Council at the 

* This Sanctuary, now pulled down, was a building near the 
Abbey, built especially as a place of safety for persons in danger. 



EDWARD IV. PRINCES IN THE TOWER. 183 

Tower, at which he appeared remarkably jovial, laugh- 
ing and joking with the Bishop of Ely and asking him 
for some of the fine strawberries in his garden. Then he 
went out for a few minutes and came back, apparently 
in a state of fury. He frowned and glowered and looked 
•so grim that every one sat silent, wondering what dread- 
ful news he had heard. Suddenly he turned upon 
Hastings, and, accusing him of impossible crimes, 
declared that he would not dine until the traitor's head 
was brought to him. Then he struck his fist furiously 
on the table and screamed out "Treason!" at which 
signal armed men rushed in and carried off the unfortu- 
nate nobleman, who was not allowed to say a word; his 
head was struck off on a log of wood that happened to 
be lying on the Tower green, and Richard went on with 
his dinner. 

This strange scene is hard to believe, but the authority 
for it is unquestionable. The Bishop of Ely himself told 
it to Sir Thomas More, one of the most truthful of men, 
who has related it in his "Life of King Edward V." 

At nearly the same time with the Hastings tragedy, 
another was enacted at Pomfret Castle, where Lord Riv- 
ers, the queen's brother, and Lord Grey, her son by her 
first husband, were put to death. As the persons most 
faithful to Edward IV. 's sons were now disposed of, 
Richard made arrangements for a theatrical display which 
he thought would be very impressive. The Duke of 
Buckingham, whom Richard made use of as a tool, came 
with the Mayor of London and a party of friends to 
Baynard Castle, where the Protector was living, and 
desired to have speech with him. Richard then appeared 
on a balcony, and Buckingham, standing in the street 



184 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

below, urged him to accept the crown, giving reasons 
which it is not worth while to repeat here. Richard 
begged that they would excuse him. He had no wish to 
be king, he said; he would rather see his nephew, his 
brother Edward's son, on the throne ; but when Bucking- 
ham assured him that the people of England would never 
allow young Edward to reign, and that if Richard refused 
it would put them to the trouble of finding some one else,. 
he at last consented, and was soon afterward crowned,, 
with his queen, Anne of Warwick, in the midst of a splen- 
did assemblage of people, and went off on a triumphaL 
journey. 

And where was the real king all this while? Safe lodged 
in the Tower with his little brother, but not in the royal 
apartments, where he had been placed while preparations 
were making for his coronation. These had been given 
up to the use of Richard and Anne, who went from them 
in state to be crowned at Westminster. It is said that 
the boys were removed to a dismal little bedroom in what 
is still called "The Bloody Tower," but nothing about it 
is certain. Here is the story as it has come down to us,, 
told afterward by two of the actors in it: Richard, finding 
that the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Robert Brakenbury,. 
was not to be depended on for a murder, ordered him to* 
give up the keys for one night to Sir James Tyrrel. 
Brakenbury dared not disobey, and at the dead of night 
Tyrrel went with two ruffians, servants of his own, named 
John Dighton and Miles Forrest, and stood at the foot 
of the winding stair-case leading to the young princes'* 
bedchamber, while the men went up to do his bidding. 
They found the two boys sleeping quietly together, and 
being men of great size and strength, they smothered 



EDWARD IV. PRINCES IN THE TOWER. 185 

them with the bolster and pillows of their bed. They 
then showed the bodies to Tyrrel, who had them thrown 
into a pit under the stairs, and had stones heaped upon 
them; but when King Richard returned to London he 
did not approve of the place, and directed that they 
should be buried somewhere else in the Tower; where, 
the witnesses did not know. 

But we know; at least we think we do. In 1674, 
nearly two hundred years after the murder, some work- 
men, in making repairs there, found a box containing the 
bones of two boys, apparently of the age of Edward V. 
and his little brother; and the king of that time, Charles 
II., had them buried in Westminster Abbey, where you 
may see their tomb to this day. A monkish chronicle of 
the time announces the event very simply. "And the 
two sons of King Edward were put to silence." 

Edward V. died in his thirteenth year, and owned the 
name of king for thirteen weeks (1483). If you wish to 
see a poetical account of his death read it in Shakspeare's 
play of "Richard III." act 4, scene 3. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE LAST PLANTAGENET. THE FIRST TUDOR. 




HE personal appearance of Richard III. is vari- 
ously described, his enemies speaking of him 
as monstrously deformed, and others describ- 
ing him as good looking, though having one shoulder 
higher and thicker than the other. His portraits justify 
the latter description. 



186 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Richard had a bitter sorrow in the loss of his only son, 
who died suddenly at eleven years old. The mother 
•died soon afterward, and the popular feeling against 
Richard was so strong that he was accused of poisoning 
his wife in order that he might marry his niece Elizabeth, 
Edward IV. 's oldest daughter; but this seems doubtful. 
It is true that in view of her probable death, and while 
her health was declining, he made an offer of marriage 
to Elizabeth, saying he was quite sure his wife would be 
dead by February. The proposed marriage, however, 
never took place. The Earl of Warwick, son of Rich- 
ard's brother Clarence, not being very strong-minded, was 
allowed to live, carefully guarded in a gloomy castle in 
Yorkshire. 

The Duke of Buckingham, who had helped Richard 
to the throne and whom he had loaded with favors, was 
still unsatisfied, and, when Richard delayed or refused 
some request, he formed, with other disaffected nobles, a 
conspiracy to dethrone him and give his crown to Henry, 
Earl of Richmond. 

This nobleman was a Lancastrian, his mother being a 
great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, by his third wife, 
Chaucer's sister-in-law. His father, Edmund Tudor, was 
son of Sir Owen Tudor, who married Katherine, the 
widow of Henry V. (That circumstance, of course, had 
nothing to do with his claim to be king of England; but 
it gave him some Welsh blood in his veins.) The first 
attempt did not succeed. Richmond was driven back 
to France by contrary winds, and Buckingham, deserted 
by his men, took refuge with an old servant; but being 
betrayed for the reward offered by Richard, he was de- 
livered up, and beheaded without a trial. 



LAST PLANT A GENET. FIRST TUDOR. 187 

Richard now felt that nothing could disturb his pos- 
session of the throne which had cost him so much to win* 
His enemies, however, were not idle. Henry Tudor's 
mother (still called Countess of Richmond, though she 
had married Lord Stanley after her first husband's death) 
had been indefatigable in raising men and money for 
him; and as Richard was celebrating the festival of Epiph- 
any, January 6th, 1485, "in his royal robes and with 
his crown upon his head," he received intelligence that 
Richmond was about to make another invasion. He said 
he was glad of it, as it would give him a chance to crush 
all his enemies at once; but it was noticed that he gave 
to Nottingham Castle, where he was staying, the name 
of the Castle of Care. He had a man put to death for 
making this rather rude but harmless rhyme: 

"The Rat, the Cat, and Lovel our Dog, 
Govern all England under the Hog. " 

RatclifTe, Catesby, and Lovel, (whose coat-of-arms bore 
a dog,) were three of Richard's chief friends; while the 
wild boar on his own crest stood for the hog in the 
couplet. 

All things being ready for his enterprise, Henry Tudor 
crossed the sea, this time safely, and landed at Milford 
Haven, in Wales, from which place he marched east- 
ward, his army increasing all the while like a rolling 
snowball, until he met that of Richard on the field of 
Bosworth in Leiscestershire. 

The battle was sharp and short. Richard fought like 
•a tiger, bitterly mortified to see in Henry's army many 
of the men whom he had counted among his best friends, 
especially the two Stanleys, one of whom, Sir William, is 
said to have gone over to Henry's side after the battle 



185 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

began. Fighting furiously, he was cut down with m 
wounds and trampled under foot by the horses. K 
crown, which he seems to have been very fond of anc I 
to have carried with him into the battle, was found under 
a hawthorn-bush ; Sir William Stanley picked it up ai 
placed it on the Earl of Richmond's head, crying out. 
" Long live King Henry the Seventh." 

That night, in the course of burying the dead, a small • 
bloody corpse was thrown carelessly across a horse, "likf*| 
a calf or a hog,' ; the chronicle says, "the arms and tu 
dangling on one side, the legs on the other," — all its fint 
clothing gone and the red wounds scarcely to be di* 
tinguished for the mire that covered them — and buried 
the church of the Gray Friars, at Leicester. Henry V 
had a monument placed over the remains, but mon. 
ment and church were alike swept away in the whole 
sale destruction of the monasteries by his son, Henr 
VIII. 

Comparatively few persons lost their lives in this clos- 
ing struggle of the Wars of the Roses. It is becaus 
Bosworth Field forms a dividing line between the old and 
the, new order of things that it is counted among the 
most noteworthy battles of English history. With the 
last Plantagenet died out the ascendency of the feudal 
nobility in England. The Tudor monarchs, from Henry- 
VII. to Elizabeth, loved peace and loved money. Glory,, 
unless it was very easy to come by, they did not covt 
and they generally limited their warlike operations to de- 
fending themselves when they were attacked. The reign 
of violence was passing away; the reign of thrift was com- 
ing in its stead. 

Richard III., arbitrary though he was, made some 



LAST PLANTAGENET. FIRST TUDOR. 189 

\ laws, and if he had come innocently to his throne he 

.rght have ranked among England's benefactors. One 
)f his statutes declares that "There shall be no hind- 

ance to any artificer or merchant stranger, of what 

J tion or country he be, for bringing into this realm or 

,ellm o by retail or otherwise, any manner of books, 

written or imprinted." His parliaments were the first 

d make laws in the English language, all previous legis- 
Sfction, since the time of William the Conqueror, having 
■ja in Norman French. Richard was the first to ap- 
point a foreign consul, and the first to employ couriers 
r or other than military purposes. In a time of peace 
d with a longer reign, the country would have taken 
tiy forward steps under his government. He was 

nly thirty-two years old at the time of his death. 

- No period of England's history, from the time of 

Chaucer to the present moment, has been so barren of 

iiterary production as the fifteenth century. The few 

"Doets who wrote anything worth mentioning were all 

cottish, the captive king, James I., standing at their 
head. The learned Sir John Fortescue wrote a book in 
praise of British laws, and Reginald Pecock attacked the 
Pope's infallibility; William Caxton translated many 
books, and Sir Thomas Malory made up from the old 
chronicles a book which he called "The Morte d' Arthur;" 
but literature, properly so called, was absent from the 
Industries of England during this troubled time. The 
two most accomplished men in the country, the Earls of 
Rivers and Worcester, fell under the axe by Richard's 
orders, and in the times when it was uncertain how long 
a man's head would remain on his shoulders, it became 
of less consequence that it should be filled with learning. 



190 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

A further step was made toward personal freedom in 
Richard's time by his freeing all the "villains" still re- 
maining in bondage on the royal domains. The Wars 
of the Roses had practically put an end to serfdom,, 
however, before this time. Some of the great families 
freed their serfs themselves, in order that they might 
fight the more willingly; and some families were so 
diminished by war that there was no one left to take 
account of the the villians, who thus became their own 
masters. It is strange, after all this bloodshed, to see 
how little feeling of bitterness remained on either side. 
The people did not even form two political parties; and 
when the Lancastrian Henry Tudor married the oldest 
daughter of the Yorkist Edward IV., the old feud seemed 
to be disposed of. Gray makes his bard say: 

" Above, below, the Rose of Snow- 
Twined with her blushing foe we spread;" 

and a chronicler of the times says that by the hand of 
the Archbishop of Canterbury "was first tied together 
the sweet posy of the red and white roses." 

Henry's tranquility did not last long. A priest at 
Oxford, named Simons, declared that a pupil of his, a 
baker's son, whose real name was Lambert Simnel, was 
no other than the young Earl of Warwick, who was re- 
ported to have escaped from the Tower. The boy was 
instructed in his part by Simons, and by him taken to» 
Ireland, where he was joyfully received, and was crowned 
in Dublin. The Earl of Lincoln, a member of the royal 
family, took his part and raised an army for him; the 
Duchess of Burgundy (sister of Edward IV.), sent over a 
body of men under Martin Schwartz, and these joining 
Lincoln a battle was fought at Stoke in which the rebels 



LAST PLANTA GENET. FIRST TUDOR. 191 

were defeated.* The real Earl of Warwick was brought 
out of the Tower and exhibited, and Simons, who con- 
fessed his imposture, was thrown into prison, where he 
soon died. Simnel was made a scullion in the king's 
kitchen, in which honorable position he washed dishes 
and waited on the servants until he was promoted to the 
office of king's falconer. t (1487.) 

Five years later another imposture was attempted. 
Perkin Warbeck, a young Fleming^ of engaging manners 
and good education, was instructed to personate the 
Duke of York, the younger of Edward IV.'s sons, under 
the pretext that this prince had escaped the fate which 
overtook his brother. Perkin presented himself before 
the Duchess of Burgundy, who gazed long and earnestly 
irito his face, and then with a burst of joy and affection 
embraced him as her long -lost nephew. As she is sup- 
posed to have instigated the plot, her surprise must have 
been overwhelming. She called him "The White Rose 
pf England," and supplied him liberally with money. 
The Irish were shy of him, remembering Lambert Simnel, 

* Lincoln and Schwartz died on the battle-field, but a curious 
story is told of Lord Lovel, one of the confederates. He disap- 
peared at the time of the battle and was never seen or heard of 
again. Just two hundred years afterward, at his country-house of 
Minster Lovel in Oxfordshire, an underground chamber was dis- 
covered, in which was found the skeleton of a man seated in a chair, 
with his head leaning on a table. It is supposed that Lovel took 
refuge in this chamber, and, not being able to get out, was starved 
to death through neglect of his attendants. 

t One who takes care of the hawks, which in those days were 
trained to pursue on the wing and kill other birds, as sport for 
their masters. 

% Native of Flanders. 



192 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

but the king of Scotland took up his cause and married 
him to Lady Catherine Gordon, daughter of the Earl 
of Huntly. 

Perkin did not show the traditional bravery of the 
House of York. He raised an army in Cornwall, but on 
hearing of the approach of the king's troops, deserted his 
own and took refuge in a sanctuary, leaving his followers 
to their fate. He was persuaded to give himself up, and, 
after some attempts to escape, was finally shut up in the 
Tower. Here he formed with the Earl of Warwick, who 
had been for fourteen years a prisoner, a plan of escape; 
and Henry, seizing the opportunity, had Perkin hanged 
at Tyburn, while the earl, as a death suited to his royal 
birth, was beheaded on Tower Hill (1499). He was the 
last descendant, in the direct male line, of the noble 
house of Plantagenet, which had given kings to England 
for more than three hundred years (1 154-1485). 

We have now come to the closing year of the great 
fifteenth century; that one which had seen printing and 
gunpowder made as common as the monk's quill and the 
man-at-arms' pike were in former times; had seen the 
mariner's compass open a way across the ocean, and 
America given to the world by Columbus; had seen Vasco 
da Gama accomplish the long-desired discovery of a route 
to India around the Cape of Good Hope; had seen the 
Moors driven out of Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella, 
and the Turks enter Europe through the gate of Constan- 
tinople; had seen France and Spain take the form of 
consolidated monarchies instead of groups of quarreling 
provinces; and had seen the power of the old feudal s 
nobility in England broken down and its warlike barons 
become the obedient subjects of a monarch. The knight 



LAST PLANTA GENET. FIRST TUDOR. 193 

in heavy armor was gone; he no longer called to his aid 
a troop of stout bowmen and with them rose in arms for 
or against the king. A statute of Edward IV. had or- 
dered the disbanding of all armed retainers, and Henry 
VII. took care that its provisions should be carried out.* 




CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. HENRY VIII. 

T has been said of Henry VII. that he had two 
ruling passions, avarice and hatred of the House 
of York. The latter extended, apparently, even 
to his queen, whose coronation he deferred until com- 
pelled to it by the murmurs of the people. When it was 
performed, he said she should have all the glory of the 
occasion, so he remained in a closely latticed box be- 
tween the altar and the pulpit in Westminster Abbey, and 
watched the ceremony from that place. 

* Lord Bacon, who wrote the life of Henry VII. gives an in- 
stance of this. The king had been making a visit to the Earl of 
Oxford (to whom he was under the greatest obligations for services 
rendered in time of need ) and was entertained in a truly princely 
manner. When he was leaving the castle two long lines of liveried 
soldiers were drawn up, making a lane for him to pass through. 
"These are surely your menial servants, my lord?" said the king. 
"May it please your grace, " replied the earl, "that were not for mine 
ease. They are most of them my retainers, that are come to do me 
service, but chiefly to see your grace." "I thank you for your good 
cheer, my lord," said Henry, "but I may not endure to have my 
laws broken in my sight. My attorney must speak with you." And 
he spoke to such good purpose that the earl was glad to get off for 
a fine of 15,000 marks (about $50,000). 

13 



194 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Henry's expedients for getting money were as ingeni- 
ous as their success was complete. He knew he had. 
only to announce a war with Scotland or France to open 
the purses of his subjects; and having thus obtained vast 
sums of money for this purpose, he would make the other 
party pay roundly for a peace, "thus getting gain from 
both his enemies and his friends." A device of his favor- 
ite minister, Cardinal Morton (in Richard's time Bishop- 
of Ely), was to demand "benevolences" from two classes- 
of persons; from those who lived handsomely and spent, 
a great deal of money, because their wealth was apparent;, 
and from those who lived poorly and plainly, because 
their economy must have made them rich. This was 
jokingly called "Morton's fork," on one prong or other 
of which every one must be impaled. But by far the 
greater part of this wealth came from the people who 
were "ground in Empson and Dudley's mills." Richard 
Empson and Edmund Dudley were two judges who made 
it their business to search out old and forgotten laws,, 
and then, by means of spies and informers, to find out 
rich men who had broken these laws, throw them into- 
prison without a trial, and keep them there until they 
paid a heavy fine. 

Henry made his younger son Warden of the Scottish 
Marches and Lieutenant of Ireland when he was only 
two years of age; too young, one would think, to earn the 
salary attached to these offices. Such practices, and 
many more, kept his coffers always full; and he seldom 
parted with his money except from necessity or for some 
personal gratification. The queen seems to have been 
very economical, so that she might have the more to give 
away. She made handsome allowances to her three mar- 



SIXTEENTH CENTURY. HENRY VIII. 195 

ried sisters, in order that they should not be dependent 
upon their husbands, while she herself wore gowns that 
were "mended, turned, and new-bodied." When the 
gowns were frayed out around the bottom she had them 
hemmed up, paying the tailor twopence for each job. 
Her shoes cost only twelve pence a pair, and had tin 
buckles instead of silver ones; but when poor people 
"brought her presents of early peas, chickens, strawber- 
ries or roses," they were always liberally rewarded. 

Henry VII. 's oldest son, Prince Arthur, was married 
at sixteen to Catherine of Aragon, the youngest daughter 
of Ferdinand and Isabella, who brought a rich dowry 
with her from Spain; his oldest daughter, Margaret, was 
married when still younger to James IV., king of Scotland. 
Prince Arthur lived only a few months after his marriage; 
but the thrifty Henry had no idea of sending back the 
young widow and her dowry, so he proposed to the 
bride's father that she should marry his second son, 
Henry, who was seven years younger than herself. After 
great objections on the part of Ferdinand, this plan was 
at length agreed to; and as Prince Henry was only eleven 
years old, the marriage was to be deferred for some years, 
the lady and the dowry remaining in England. 

When Henry w r as about to die, he did some generous 
things with the money which he could no longer use, and 
he granted pardons to some criminals. Having thus made 
his peace with Heaven, he died in the twenty-fourth year 
of his reign and the fifty -fourth of his age (1509). He 
left two architectural monuments behind him; one a 
costly palace at Richmond, which has not much interest 
for us now, and the other the beautiful chapel at West- 
minster Abbey, still called by his name. 



196 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

England had never been so prosperous as under 
Henry the Seventh. His extortions, outrageous as they 
were, affected chiefly the rich and not the main body of 
the people. Commerce and manufactures flourished, 
and the king had a share in the discovery of America by 
fitting out the ship in which John and Sebastian Cabot 
explored the coast of Labrador (1498). If this expedi- 
tion did not bring in immediate returns, it at least 
furnished England with her ground for claiming, a 
century later, the whole Atlantic coast. 

Henry VII. did not reward his explorers very sumptu- 
ously, as we learn from his carefully-kept accounts, 
where there is an entry of ten shillings to be paid to the 
discoverer of "the new isle" (Newfoundland), and an- 
other of five shillings to the same person. He came 
near having the honor of being the patron of Columbus, 
but the brother whom the great Genoese sent to ask aid 
from England was taken by pirates, and before he re- 
covered his liberty, Queen Isabella had befriended 
Columbus, earned the gratitude of the world, 
"And built herself an everlasting name." 

Among Henry's few spendings for public purposes was 
the building of a huge war-ship, called the "Great Harry," 
which when finished was so clumsy that it could not be 
used, but which is considered the foundation of the 
present English navy. 

The Dutch scholar, Erasmus, who lived in England 
during Henry VII. ; s time, and who came from a clean 
country, was shocked at the condition of English houses, 
even of the better sort. "The floors," he says, "are 
mostly of clay, and strewn with rushes. Fresh rushes 
are periodically laid over them, but the old ones remain 



SIXTEENTH CENTURY. HENRY VIII. 197 

as a foundation for perhaps twenty years together." The 
condition of the lower layers under these circumstances 
we will leave to the imagination. 

Erasmus had good reason to remember the English 
custom-houses, for when he sailed from Dover to return 
to his own country, the king's officers took away all his 
money except six angels, the largest amount any one was 
allowed to carry out of England. All sums obtained in 
this way went, of course, directly into the king's pocket. 

Henry VIII. came to the throne (1509) with the fair- 
est prospects that ever opened before an English king. 
The rival lines of York and Lancaster were united in 
him, so that strife on that ground was impossible; the 
country was at peace with all the world, and the treasury 
was full. He himself, now eighteen years old, was 
handsome, strong, skilful in all manly exercises, and full 
of hope and high spirits. He was as lavish in spending 
money as his father had been eager in gathering it to- 
gether; and the great hoard left by Henry VII. was 
soon used up in court gayeties. Henry now married the 
Princess Katherine of Aragon, his brother's widow, to 
whom he had been betrothed for seven years. 

The first public act of his reign was one of the grossest 
injustice. Popular clamor demanded the punishment of 
Henry VII. 's two judges, Empson and Dudley; but as 
they had acted only under the king's orders, and kept 
strictly within the letter of the law, it was hard to know 
of what to accuse them. Finally a charge was trumped 
up against them of having conspired to take the young 
king prisoner and form a new government. Nothing 
could be more absurd; but the accusation was made, and 
they were both beheaded, though none of the ill-gotten 



198 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

wealth procured by their means was ever given back. 

The first excitement from outside the kingdom came 
from a war with France. Rome, Spain, and Venice 
had formed what they called a "Holy League," against 
France, though its only holiness was the name of the 
pope; and Henry's astute father-in-law, Ferdinand the 
Catholic, made a cat's-paw of him to further his own 
ends. Henry soon invaded France on his own account, 
the Emperor Maxmilian of Germany serving under him 
for pay like an ordinary soldier. There was a battle 
fought at Guinegate, near Calais (15 13), called "The 
Battle of the Spurs,"* 1 because the French used their 
spurs so freely in running away. Henry took the towns 
of Terouenne and Tournay, but went home again with- 
out following up his victory. 

Before he reached England an event had occurred in 
his own country which has been made forever famous 
by the pen of the great magician, Walter Scott, in 
"Marmion." This was the battle of Flodden Field, 
where Henry's brother-in-law, James IV. of Scotland, 
lost his life (15 13). King James had made an alliance 
with France, and invaded England with the whole 
strength of his army, including the flower of his nobility. 
After an obstinate battle the Scots were defeated. 

" Their king, their lords, their mightiest low, 
They melted from the field as snow, 
When streams are swollen and south winds blow, 
Dissolves in silent dew." 

* Sometimes called "The Second Battle of the Spurs," the first 
having taken place at Courtrai, in Flanders (1302), where the 
knights' gilt spurs were picked up by the bushel and hung as 
trophies in the great church. 



SIXTEENTH CENTURY. HENRY VIII. 199 

Peace with Scotland and France soon followed, and 
Henry cemented it by marrying his youngest sister, 
Mary, a girl of sixteen, to Louis XII. of France, who 
was fifty-two years old and in very feeble health. The 
Princess was already betrothed to Charles Brandon, 
Duke of Suffolk, one of the most gallant of English 
fcnights, but this made no difference to Henry. His self- 
will always overruled every consideration, whether of 
sympathy, honor or truth; and she was forced to submit. 
In less than three months her husband died, and not 
long afterward she married Brandon in Paris, with the 
■consent of the new king, Francis I. Henry professed to 
be very angry at this, but the money and jewels which 
his sister brought back from France soon reconciled 
him to the match. 

With all King Henry's obstinacy and self-will, he was 
^gradually falling under the influence of a man stronger- 
minded than himself, who was destined to shape his 
course of conduct for many years. This was Thomas 
Wolsey, one of the most remarkable men of his age or of 
any age, who had risen from a very humble station, (it 
is said that he was the son of a butcher at Ipswich,) to 
be Bishop of Lincoln and Archbishop of York, and 
finally to receive a cardinal's hat from the pope. He 
was a man of extensive learning and varied accomplish- 
ments, and in addition to wit and gayety and most 
agreeable manners, possessed a talent for statesmanship 
which soon made him, unconsciously to the king, his 
director in all public affairs. Henry made him Chancel- 
lor, and Wolsey followed the practice of the age in living 
in the utmost splendor and luxury. Henry loaded him 
with offices that brought him both honor and profit, but 



200 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the Cardinal's grasping nature was never satisfied, and 
he contrived constantly to add to his immense fortune. 
As chancellor, his administration was strict and im- 
partial; in private life his character was blameless; but 
avarice and ambition obscured his better qualities and 
prepared for him a miserable end. 

In 15 19, the Emperor Maximilian died, and the em- 
pire, being elective, became a tempting prize to the one 
who could secure it. The choice fell upon Charles I. of 
Spain, grandson of Maximilian and also of Ferdinand 
the Catholic, in opposition to Francis I. of France, who 
ardently desired to be emperor. The successful candi- 
date is known thenceforth in history as the Emperor 
Charles V. 

Francis was very angry at his defeat, and both he and 
Charles courted the favor of Henry VIII. Their methods 
were as different as their characters; Francis got up the 
superb tournament called "The Field of the Cloth of 
Gold;" Charles secretly bribed Wolsey to take his part 
by promising to use his influence to have him made 
pope. In the end, Charles prevailed; but the tourna- 
ment, which was arranged under the direction of Wolsey,. 
was the most splendid entertainment at which the cour- 
tiers of either nation ever wasted their money. It lasted 
eighteen days, and more was squandered on it, as was 
said by those who remembered the economical days of 
Henry VII. and Louis XII. than either of those wise 
monarchs would have spent in a year. The wooden 
palace, built to lodge the king of England and his suite, 
extended round a square court, each side of which was 
over three thousand feet in length. The cardinal had a 
splendid train of retainers, and each English gentleman 



SIXTEENTH CENTURY. HENRY VIII. 201 

took as many followers with him as his purse could pro- 
vide with gorgeous equipments. Nearly three thousand 
tents, most of them covered with silk or cloth of gold, 
were erected on the plain adjoining the principal build- 
ings, and many a man "sold his land to buy his horse"; 
that is, ruined himself that he might present a fitting 
appearance at the festival. "Many of the nobles/' says 
an eye-witness of the glittering scene, "carried their 
castles, woods, and farms on their backs." Francis, who 
was the host on this occasion, was not behindhand with 
his hospitality. Sumptuous feasts were provided; foun- 
tains ran wine; and thousands of persons who came to 
see the show were fed at the king's expense: "Insomuch," 
says the historian Hall, who was present, "that there 
were vagabonds, plowmen, waggoners, and beggars that 
for drunkenness lay in routs and heaps." The negotia- 
tions carried on during the tournament came to nothing, 
and after Henry's return to England the royal rivals never 
met again. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

HENRY THE TYRANT \ ALSO "DEFENDER OF THE FAITH. 




'ENRY VIII. had not yet begun to show his 
darkest side to his people; they knew him to 
be extravagant and wilful, but the cruel jeal- 
ousy which can only be satisfied with blood, he was yet 
to exhibit. 

Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, was a distant 
relation of the king. His father was beheaded by Rich- 



202 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ard III. for treason, and the heads of three generations 
of his family before that had been killed in the Wars of 
the Roses; and now that York and Lancaster were one, 
it seemed as if the fifth in descent might live out his life 
peaceably. But taking advantage of an unguarded ex^ 
pression of Buckingham's to the effect that he would be 
the next in the line of succession if the king should die 
without children, Henry ordered him to be executed on 
as false a charge of treason as ever sent a subject to the 
block. 

The old question of religion now came up again. A 
•German monk named Martin Luther had taken up the 
work which John Wycliffe left unfinished a hundred and 
fifty years before, and boldly attacked some of the prin- 
ciples and practices of the Roman Church, especially the 
sale of indulgences, or remissions of penalties for sins 
committed. Tetzel, an agent of Pope Leo X., was then 
hawking these indulgences about, in order to supply Leo 
with money for building the Church of St. Peter at Rome, 
and Luther thundered forth denunciations of the unchris- 
tian practice. Henry had been brought up a good Cath- 
olic, and Luther's utterances seemed to him monstrous. 
In his zeal he wrote a book against these heretical doc- 
trines,for which the pope gave him the name of "Defender 
of the Faith." In Latin (the language then used by the 
governments of Europe in their communications with 
one another) the words are "Fidei Defensor;" and as all 
English sovereigns have inherited the title from Henry 
VIII. you may still read them on some of the coins of 
•Queen Victoria (Fid. Def.). 

After the death of Leo X., two successive popes had 
been elected without a voice being raised in Wolsey's 



HENRY THE TYRANT. 203 

favor. He thought that the emperor (Charles V.) was 
treating him very badly, and induced Henry to break off 
his alliance with him and take up the cause of Francis I. 
who had just been taken prisoner by Charles at the battle 
-of Pavia. Henry readily consented, but turned the mat- 
ter to his own advantage by demanding an enormous 
present payment in money from France, and a yearly 
pension during his life. When Francis was released, he 
and Henry joined together to liberate the pope, who was 
also a prisoner, Rome having been taken and sacked by 
the brutal soldiery of Charles V. These matters being 
settled, Henry was at liberty to look after his own affairs. 
He had now been married to Katherine of Aragon for 
eighteen years. All their sons had died, and only one 
•child remained, the Princess Mary. Outwardly, Henry 
■was as loving as ever, but he had for a long time been 
secretly turning over in his mind the possibility of getting 
rid of his wife. He professed to feel doubts as to whether 
his marriage with her had been lawful, as she was his 
brother's widow; but Pope Julius II. had given permis- 
sion for the marriage, and in those days that was enough 
to decide any question. Henry, however, had a young 
lady in his mind, Anne Boleyn, one of the queen's maids 
of honor, whom he wished to put in Katherine's place, 
and his scruples became stronger and his conscience 
more tender than ever. He applied to the pope, Clement 
VII., for a divorce, and the latter, not wishing to offend 
him, gave him promise of a favorable answer, but man- 
aged to put off the matter, in various ways, for several 
years. He first sent Cardinal Campeggio to look into it, 
in connection with Cardinal Wolsey, The two legates 
{as the pope's ambassadors are called) opened a court 



204 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

for hearing the case. The king answered promptly to 
his name; the queen refused to appear, and the two car- 
dinals talked about it and about it until finally the pope 
broke up the court and said the king and queen must 
come to Rome and have the case tried there.* 

Henry was enraged beyond measure at this insult, and 
was trying to make up his mind what he should do next y 
when Dr. Thomas Cranmer, of Cambridge, suggested 
that it would be a good plan to send to the great univer- 
sities of Europe and ask their opinion on the question,. 
"Is it lawful for a man to marry his brother's widow?" 
Henry was delighted with this proposal, and sent at once 
for Cranmer, whom he had never seen; and finding that 
the doctor was going to be a useful instrument in carrying 
out his projects, instantly took him into his service and 
loaded him with favors. 

As Cranmer's influence rose, Wolsey's declined. He 
had not, the king thought, shown himself zealous enough 
in the matter of the divorce, and he had not pointed out 
a way to end the difficulty, as Cranmer had; and the 
friend and counsellor of twenty years was thrown over in. 
a moment. He was banished from the court, and the 
Great Seal (which denoted his office as Chancellor) was. 
taken away from him; while Anne Boleyn, who hated 
him because he did not approve of the king's marrying 
her, made Henry promise never to see Wolsey again. 
The cardinal was accused, by the king's orders, of 
treason, because he had held a court in England as 
legate from the pope, which was against English law; 

* For an account of the trial in London, which follows history 
very closely, see Shakspeare's " Henry VIII. " Act II. scene IV. Also 
the scene following, for the queen's interview with the cardinals. 



HENRY THE TYRANT. 205 

though Henry himself had commanded it, under his own 
hand and seal, and appeared before it as a suitor. All 
the cardinal's houses, lands and goods were declared 
forfeited, and his life was granted only by the king's 
mercy. His enormous wealth, amounting in value to 
several millions of dollars, was swept at once into 
Henry's coffers; his palaces of Hampton Court and 
York House (now Whitehall) were confiscated, and he 
was sentenced to retire to his Archbishopric of York, a 
disgraced and banished man. His spirit was utterly 
broken. The French ambassador wrote of him: "His 
face has shrunken to half its natural size, and his misery 
is so great that even his enemies can not help pitying 
him." In his retirement he appeared dignified and com- 
posed, and won all hearts by his kindness and gener- 
osity. But Anne Boleyn's spite was not yet gratified, 
and within a year Wolsey was summoned to London on 
a charge of treason. Fortunately, he did not live to get 
there, and Henry was spared the last disgrace of bring- 
ing his head to the block. The cardinal was taken sick 
on his way to London, and died at Leicester Abbey 
(1530). His last recorded words were, "If I had served 
God as diligently as I have served the king, He would 
not have given me over in my gray hairs." He had 
lived a selfish and grasping life, and the consciousness of 
it came to him too late. 

Among Wolsey's good deeds was the founding of a 
college at Oxford. Each of the great universities of 
England consists of many colleges, which have been 
added at different times as there seemed to be a neces- 
sity for them. Wolsey's was called Cardinal's College, 
and was unfinished at the time of his disgrace. The 



206 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



king immediately seized it, but afterward allowed it to 
be completed with funds which the Cardinal had set 
aside for that purpose, and changed the name of it to 
Christ Church College. 

Henry married Anne Boleyn privately, without wait- 
ing for the divorce that was so slow in coming. After 
the answers arrived from the universities to which he 
had appealed, and which were generally favorable to his 
wishes, he had a divorce pronounced by Cranmer, whom 
he had made Archbishop of Canterbury when a vacancy 
occurred. This measure was followed by a series of acts- 
passed by a Parliament called for the. purpose, freeing 
England from the dominion of the pope. The king was 
declared to be the supreme Head of the Church in Eng- 
land, and all persons were forbidden to pay tribute to 
the pope or in any way acknowledge his authority, under 
penalty of a charge of high-treason. Sir Thomas More, 
a learned, wise and excellent man who had been made 
Chancellor in Wolsey's place, gave up the Great Seal 
rather than to countenance what he considered an act of 
iniquity.* For refusing to take the oath acknowledging 
the king's supremacy and declaring his marriage with 
Katherine to be unlawful, Sir Thomas More and John 
Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, were sent to the Tower. 
After an imprisonment of more than a year, and a most 
unfair trial, they were both beheaded (1535). Fisher 

* Sir Thomas More was the greatest author of his time. He- 
wrote a book called "Utopia," which was really a keen satire on 
the existing government of England, but a satire so delicately con- 
veyed that it gave no offence even to the jealous king. More's 
ideas on the social system and the labor question were hundreds of 
years in advance of his age. 



HENRY THE TYRANT. 207 

might possibly have escaped, but the pope, just at this- 
time, imprudently proposed to make him a cardinal. 
"The pope may send him a cardinal's hat," said Henry^ 
"but he shall have no head to wear it on;" and soon 
after the honor was conferred upon him, the king made 
good his word by ordering him to the block. 

Paul III. had still in his hands the old weapon of ex- 
communication, which he had used with such effect in 
the time of Henry II. and his son King John, and he 
soon hurled it forth against Henry VIII. But all it 
could do was to increase Henry's rage against Rome, 
and in order to deal a last blow, he began breaking up 
the monasteries, beginning with the smaller ones. The 
excuse for this was the evil life led by many of the 
monks, and the exactions of the church, which ate away 
the substance of the poor. The abolition of the mon- 
asteries caused great distress among the idlers who had 
been fed at their doors, and among the peasants who had 
been used to pasturing their cattle on the commons 
belonging to them; and the discontent arising from these 
causes brought on a rebellion called, "The Pilgrimage 
of Grace," which was suppressed by the Duke of Norfolk, 
the same who, as Earl of Surrey, had gained the battle 
of Flodden.' f After this, such monasteries as were not 
voluntary given up were taken by force, their immense 

* The king wrote to him, "You shall in any wise cause such 
dreadful execution to be done upon a good number of the inhabi- 
tants of every town, village and hamlet that has offended, as well 
by the hanging of them up in trees as by the quartering of them 
and the setting of their heads and quarters in every town, as they 
may be a fearful spectacle to all hereafter as would practise any- 
like matter." 



208 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

revenues falling into the king's hands, and their houses 
and lands being given to his favorite courtiers or ab- 
sorbed into his private possessions. A special spite was 
shown in regard to the tomb of St. Thomas a Becket at 
Canterbury. As he was considered to be the arch- 
offender in upholding the supremacy of the Church, his 
name was struck from the calendar of saints, his shrine 
was torn down, the rich gifts of four hundred years being 
seized by the king; the coffin was emptied of its contents 
and the bones were dispersed to the winds. 

Henry's chief agent in the destruction of the monas- 
teries was Thomas Cromwell, a man of immense ability, 
who is credited with having first suggested to the king 
the doctrine of his own supremacy in matters of religion. 
Cromwell had been the private secretary of Cardinal 
Wolsey until the fall of that minister, and under his piti- 
less rule blood flowed like water whenever the slightest 
opposition seemed to threaten the king's absolute domin- 
ion. One of the strangest things about Henry's reign is 
the fact that no matter how outrageous were his assump- 
tions, he always found Parliaments ready to do his will. 
At one time, when he had borrowed large sums of money 
from his subjects, for the repayment of which he had 
given bonds and other securities, the Parliament gener- 
ously annulled all his obligations, and his unfortunate 
creditors could only "pocket the loss." So long did what 
Shakspeare calls "the divinity that doth hedge a king," 
impose upon the most intelligent nation in Europe ! 




THE ENGLISH BIBLE. EDWARD VI. 209 
CHAPTER XXVI. 

HENRY'S WIVES. THE ENGLISH BIBLE. EDWARD VI. 

E must now go back several years to take up 
some details of Henry's private life which have 
a bearing on history. Queen Katherine had 
died in her house at Kimbolton, and Queen Anne had 
given birth to a princess named Elizabeth, after the king's 
mother. But Henry, who grew more fickle and capri- 
cious every year, had seen among Anne's maids of honor 
a young lady named Jane Seymour, who attracted his 
admiration, and from that moment his only thought was 
how he might get rid of Anne, as he had done of Kath- 
erine. Charges of misconduct were brought against her, 
and witnesses procured to swear to them (an easy 
matter) so the pretty young queen was beheaded on 
Tower Hill. "My neck is but a little one," she said; "it 
will not give the executioner much trouble." Henry now 
called a Parliament (for the one which made laws against 
the pope had been dismissed after sitting seven years) 
and made them say that the princesses Mary and Eliza- 
beth could not lawfully be queens of England; so when 
a little son was born to Queen Jane he was very much 
delighted. 

Nothing can be more erroneous than to call Henry the 
Eighth the author of the English Reformation. He was 
the enemy of the pope, and through his means some 
reforms were effected in the practices of the Church of 
Rome in England; but the belief which finally settled 
down into English Protestantism was the belief, not of 
Henry the Eighth, but of Luther. 
14 



210 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Neither must it be supposed that because Henry VIII. 
quarrelled with the pope and plundered the monasteries,, 
he was a convert to the Protestant doctrine. On the 
contrary, he caused a law to be passed by Parliament 
that all persons who did not believe in six articles of 
faith set forth by himself, and which contain the sub- 
stance of the Roman Catholic belief, should suffer the 
penalties of heresy. The "six articles" went by the 
name of "The Whip with Six Strings;" but it was more 
terrible than a whip. It meant burning at the stake for 
those who refused to subscribe to the doctrines. These 
were, Transubstantiation;* that the laity should partake 
only of bread and not of wine at the Holy Communion; 
that private masses ought to be said for the dead; that 
confession to priests was necessary; and two others 
which forbade the marriage of priests and nuns. 

So the burnings, hangings, rackings,t torturings, went 
on; all who believed in the Reformed religion were lia- 
ble to them, and all faithful Catholics who questioned 
the king's supremacy were in danger of losing their 
heads. Among the former class of victims was Anne 
Ascue, a young lady belonging to the court, whose fate 
excited much sympathy. She was burned alive, after 
being first inhumanly racked. Of the other class, a 
shameful instance was that of Margaret, Countess of 
Salisbury, sister to the young Earl of Warwick who was 
beheaded by Henry VII., and daughter of Clarence, 
Edward IV/s brother. Her son, Cardinal Pole, was in. 
Rome with the pope, and from there wrote very hard 

*The change of the substance of the bread and wine into the 
actual body and blood of Christ, 
t A horrible kind of torture. 



THE ENGLISH BIBLE. EDWARD VI. 211 

things against King Henry; and as the latter could not 
get hold of the cardinal, (though he invited him to come 
to England and discuss the matter !) he seized his mother 
and brother, and as many others of the family as he 
could lay hold of, and had them killed for correspond- 
ing with him. The countess was the hardest to deal 
with. She refused to lay her head on the block at the 
executioner's bidding; that was for traitors, she said, and 
she was no traitor; she moved it swiftly from side to 
side, this woman in her eightieth year, and finally, with 
two men holding it down by force, the axe after many 
blows severed it from her body. She was nearly related 
to the king. 

Queen Jane Seymour died soon after her son's birth, 
and Henry began to look out for another wife. A cer- 
tain Duchess of Milan, who was approached on the sub- 
ject, said that if she had two heads, one should be at his 
majesty's service; but that having only one, she pre- 
ferred to keep it. Finally Cromwell picked out a Pro- 
testant princess, Anne of Cleves, whose picture by the 
famous painter, Holbein, pleased the king. But when 
the lady herself came, Henry found her plain-looking 
and stupid. She knew not a word of any language but 
German, which he did not speak; and she had no 
accomplishments. So she was soon divorced, on some 
shabby pretext, and the king's wrath fell on Cromwell. 
The unfortunate minister, whose only fault had been 
untiring devotion to the king's wishes and interests, was 
accused of treason and beheaded. Anne of Cleves was 
comfortably pensioned off, and lived in England until 
her death, surviving her inconstant husband ten years. 

Henry next married Katherme Howard, a relative of 



212 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



the Duke of Norfolk. She was really a bad woman and 
there was little difficulty in getting her head cut off soon 
after her marriage. His sixth wife was Katherine Parr, 
widow of Lord Latimer, who conducted herself so dis- 
creetly, and proved such a good nurse to the miserable 
diseased monster that she outlasted the king himself. 

A war with Scotland is the only foreign event of 
importance during the remainder of this reign. James 
V., son of Henry's sister Margaret, had married a Cath- 
olic wife, and was much influenced by her family, the 
Guises, a set of powerful French nobles. This made 
Henry dislike him, and border warfare had been going 
on for some time between the two countries, when the 
Scottish king suddenly sent an army into England, which 
was defeated at the battle of Sol way Moss. James, a 
low-spirited and timid person, took to his bed on hear- 
ing of the disaster; and being told that he was the 
father of a little daughter, sighed out, "The crown came 
with a lass and it will go with one."* He died five days 
afterward, and Henry at once began negotiations for 
marrying the infant Princess Mary to his son Edward. 
This being refused, an aimless war was carried on with 
Scotland and France for about three years, when, after 
an enormous waste of money and very little fighting, both 
sides were ready for peace. 

Several translations of the Bible were made in Henry 
VIII. ; s reign. William Tyndale published at Antwerp 
(1526) an English version of the New Testament, and 
Miles Coverdale made the first translation of the entire 

* David Bruce, son of Robert I., had no sons. His daughter 
Marjory married Walter Stuart, and thus became the ancestress of 
the Stuart kings of Scotland. 



THE ENGLISH BIBLE. EDWARD VI. 213 

Bible (1535). Four years later, a copy of Cranmer's or 
"The Great Bible" was, by the king's order, placed in 
every parish church in England.* A part of the church 
service was also translated by Cranmer from Latin into 
English, thus helping to establish a truly national church. 

Nothing needs to be added to a record of the deeds 
of Henry the Eighth. Tyrant and murderer, the slave 
of his passions, the capricious ruler of the destinies of 
others, our disgust overpowers every other feeling in 
thinking of him. Yet even this wretch has found apolo- 
gists ; and there are historians who dwell on his energy, 
his courage, and his vigor of mind; but when these are 
applied to hateful purposes they lose their lustre in our 
eyes. It has often been a matter of wonder why, in 
spite of his monstrous tyranny, he should have been 
popular with the great mass of the people. With them 
he was "Bluff King Hal" to the last. In the first place, 
it was hard to shake their idea of the sacredness of the 
crown; and then, his cruelties fell almost entirely upon 
the higher classes. If the poorer ones opposed his will, 
as in the "Pilgrimage of Grace," they too felt the weight 
of his hand; but it seldom happened that his interests 
and theirs were brought into direct collision. 

Henry has been called a patron of learning. He 
founded Trinity College in Cambridge, and encouraged 
the "New Learning" as the study of Greek was called, 
though the credit of that belonged more to Cardinal 
Wolsey and to some eminent men in the universities 
themselves. The greatest author of the age, Sir Thomas 
More, was sent to the block for being a good Catholic ; 

* It is from this Bible that the version of the Psalms ir the pres- 
ent English Book of Common Prayer is taken, 



214 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the finest poet, Lord Surrey, met the same fate because 
he was a distant relative of the king's, and Sir Thomas 
Wyatt, also a poet, came very near having his head cut 
off on the charge of having been a lover of Anne 
Boleyn's. These three were the most famous writers of 
Henry's time. John Heywood wrote dramatic pieces of 
small value, of a kind called "Interludes," and the histo- 
rians, Fabyan and Hall, added their chronicles to the 
growing mass of English annals. 

Henry died after a reign of 38 years (1547) in the 
fifty-sixth year of his age. 

Edward VI., son of Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour, 
was ten years old at the time of his father's death. Lord 
Hertford, the young king's uncle and brother of Lady 
Jane, was made Protector with the assistance of a coun- 
cil. The new council was composed mostly of Protes- 
tants, and as the young king had been brought up in the 
same belief, the reformed religion was established at 
once. The law requiring adherence to the Six Articles 
was repealed, together with all those directed against 
what was still called "Lollardy," and the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer was completed by Cranmer and made the 
established service of the Church. An act was passed 
allowing the marriage of the clergy, while another re- 
pealed the statutes against heresy; and though the Eng- 
lish mind had not yet arrived at the great doctrine of 
toleration in religious matters, the blood penalty for 
wrong believing fell for a time into disuse. 

The change of religion was not accomplished without 
some disturbance. In several parts of England the 
people rose in rebellion, demanding the restoration of 
the mass, and other religious observances to which they 



THE ENGLISH BIBLE. EDWARD VI. 215 

had been accustomed; but these were soon put down, 
and all acquiesced, outwardly at least, in the new forms 
of worship. 

Determined to carry out Henry's intentions of uniting 
the kingdoms of Scotland and England by marriage, the 
Protector (now created Duke of Somerset) led an army 
into Scotland and defeated the Scots at the battle of 
Pinkie. He did not, however, secure the young queen, 
who was soon afterward betrothed to the Dauphin of 
Prance. 

Somerset hurried back from Scotland at the news that 
his brother, Lord Seymour (who had married Henry 
VIII.'s widow, Katherine Parr), was forming a party 
against him. He succeeded in making the Parliament 
pass a bill of attainder * against Seymour, and the latter 
was beheaded. In a few years, Somerset himself suffered 
the same fate. It was not difficult in those times of an 
irregular and uncertain hold upon power, to find charges 
against almost any man who conducted public affairs, 
and Somerset had undoubtedly been arbitrary, taking 
more upon himself than if he had been indeed a king. 

John Dudley, Earl of Warwick (son of Henry VII. 's 
minister), who had been made Duke of Northumberland, 
now saw his way clear to succeed to the Protector's 
power, and never rested until Somerset had been brought 
to the scaffold (1552). Edward VL, while his uncle's trial 
was going on, was amusing himself at tournaments, balls, 
and banquets, it being just at the time of the Christmas 
holidays; and on the 22nd of January there is a busi- 
ness-like entry in the journal which he kept, and which 

* An act of Parliament declaring a person guilty of treason and 
condemning him without trial in any court of law. 



216 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

is most valuable for historical reference, "The Duke of 
Somerset had his head cut off upon Tower-hill, between 
eight and nine o'clock in the morning." This was his 
mother's brother, and a man who, as far as we know,, 
had never been otherwise than kind to him. 

King Edward was now drawing near his end. He was 
so evidently in a consumption that Northumberland 
began to make plans for keeping the control of public 
affairs in his own hands by marrying his fourth son, Guil- 
ford Dudley, to Edward's cousin, Lady Jane Grey. The 
king, intensely interested in the reformed religion and 
dreading that a Roman Catholic should rule his country,, 
was easily persuaded to set aside his sisters in his will, 
and declare Lady Jane the true heir to the crown. 
Shortly before Edward's death, the duke, finding that 
the physicians were doing him no good, turned him over 
to the care of an ignorant woman, under whose treat- 
ment he grew rapidly worse, and died (1553) after a 
reign of six years, in the sixteenth year of his age. 

Edward VI. was a studious boy, very religious, and had 
apparently an amiable disposition. He was fond of his 
half-sister, Elizabeth, who was only a few years older 
than himself, and was a Protestant, besides; while with 
the gloomy Mary he had very little sympathy. What 
kind of king he would have made if he had lived to grow 
up is a question which can not now be settled. 




LADY JANE GREY. BLOODY MARY. 217 
CHAPTER XXVII. 

LADY JANE GREY. BLOODY MARY. CALAIS. 

j|ADY Jane Grey (for so she is always called, 
though by her marriage she became Lady 
Jane Dudley) was a granddaughter of Henry 
VIII/'s second sister, Mary, Duchess of Suffolk. She 
was probably the best educated woman in England, ex- 
cept the Princess Elizabeth, and was as lovely in char- 
acter as she was cultivated in mind. She had no desire 
to be queen, but yielded to the wishes of her father-in- 
law and of her own father. Northumberland's procla- 
mation of her was received in ominous silence, and one 
poor boy called Gilbert Pot had his ears first nailed to 
the pillory and then cut off, for "speaking words" about 
the new queen. Queen Mary, meantime, instead of 
being "quiet and obedient" as Northumberland advised 
her to be, collected an army at once and prepared to 
march to London. The duke thought of resisting; but 
seeing how much superior in numbers her army was to 
his own, changed his mind and joined in hurrahing for 
her. Mary mounted the throne. Northumberland was 
arrested and sent to the Tower, as were also Lady Jane 
and her husband and many of her supporters. Most of 
the latter were pardoned, but the duke was executed 
after a short trial, while Lord Guilford Dudley and his 
wife, the ten-days queen, were left in prison under sen- 
tence of death. 

If Jane had had even a fair showing of right on her 
side, there is little doubt that many Protestants would 



218 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

have flocked to her assistance and the country would 
have been convulsed by civil war; but Edward VI.'s 
attempt to place her on the throne was so clearly a 
usurpation that they had no sympathy with it. The law- 
abiding instincts of the nation asserted their superiority 
over their preferences, and there was never for a moment 
any chance that an unlawful cause should triumph. 

The queen's first care was to restore the Roman Cath- 
olic religion. The bishops who had been turned out by 
Henry for denying his supremacy were at once recalled, 
while several of the most noted of the reformed ones, 
among others, Cranmer, Hooper, Ridley, and Latimer, 
were thrown into prison. All the statutes of Edward 
VI.'s reign regarding religion were repealed in a lump, 
and Mary sent word to the pope that it was the first wish 
of her heart that the country should be "reconciled" with 
the Church of Rome. The Parliament passed an act 
annulling the divorce pronounced by Cranmer between 
Henry VIII. and Katherine of Aragon, thus putting it 
beyond a doubt that Mary was England's lawful queen. 

Mary was now thirty- seven years old, in poor health 
and on that account very plain -looking. Notwithstand- 
ing this, she occupied a proud place among the monarchs 
of Europe, and her cousin, Charles V. of Germany (son 
of her mother's sister Joanna) sent at once to propose a 
marriage between her and his son Philip, who was eleven 
years younger than herself. The House of Commons 
expressed in the strongest terms their disapprobation of 
■such a marriage, upon which Mary, who was determined 
that it should take place, dissolved the Parliament. The 
new laws reestablishing the Roman Catholic religion 
were now openly enforced; the mass was celebrated 



LADY JANE GREY. BLOODY MARY. 219 

everywhere and a convocation of the clergy declared the 
marriage of priests unlawful. All the married clergy were 
turned out from their livings. These things alarmed the 
non- Catholic element of the people, who anticipated 
measures still more distasteful when there should be a 
foreign prince fastened upon them. A rebellion was 
accordingly raised against Mary by Sir Thomas Wyatt 
the younger, son of the poet. Wyatt was taken prisoner 
and executed, with about thirty of his followers; and the 
rebellion proved fatal to the innocent Lady Jane, and 
her boy -husband. She declined to see Lord Guilford 
before their execution, for fear it should unnerve them 
"both. She saw him walk to the scaffold, and then saw 
his body taken out of a cart, with the head wrapped in a 
•cloth, but shed no tear. The old narrative concludes in 
these words: "She tied the kerchief about her eyes; then 
feeling for the block, said, 'What shall I do? Where is 
it?' One of the standers-by guiding her thereto, she laid 
her head down upon the block, and stretched forth her 
body, and said, 'Lord, into thy hands I commend my 
spirit.' And so she ended." 

The Princess Elizabeth was arrested at the same time, 
but after being shut up in the Tower for a month was re- 
leased and sent to Woodstock, where she long remained 
a prisoner. Hollinshed, one of the chroniclers of the 
time, relates how when once upon a time she heard a 
milkmaid in her garden singing pleasantly, she wished 
she too were a milkmaid, as she would then lead a merrier 
and happier life than her present one. But she never for 
a moment forgot her royal blood, or condescended to 
ask for mercy. None of Henry VIII. 's children lacked 
spirit or courage. 



220 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

It was while Elizabeth was still at Woodstock that 
Philip of Spain came to England, with many chests of 
Spanish silver, and was married amid great rejoicings. 
The Londoners new- gilded the great cross in Cheapside, 
and pulled down every gallows in the city on which still 
hung the decaying bodies of "Wyatt's rebels." After the 
marriage, a trivial incident showed how strong was the 
party spirit that separated Romanists from Protestants. 
A certain conduit in Gracechurch Street under which the 
royal party was to pass, was decorated with a portrait of 
Henry VIII. holding a Bible in his hand on which was 
written "Verbum Dei" (the Word of God). Gardiner, 
Bishop of Winchester, sent for the painter, "and with vile 
words calling him traitor, asked why, and who bade him 
describe King Henry with a book in his hand, as afore- 
said. The painter humbly apologized, and said he 
thought he had done well. 'Nay/ said the bishop, 'it 
is against the queen's Catholic proceedings.' And so he 
painted him shortly after, in the stead of the book of 
Verbum Dei, to have in his hands a new pair of gloves." 

It was not long before other straws showed which way 
the wind was blowing. A Parliament was got together 
in the queen's interest, in which an address to the pope 
was voted, declaring their sorrow for all past proceed- 
ings against him; and the legate, Cardinal Pole, gave the- 
kingdom absolution, and received it again into the bosom 
of the Catholic Church. On one point the Parliament 
was perfectly firm. It would not take away the Abbey 
lands and goods which had been granted by Henry VIII. 
to individuals. This is not to be wondered at, as many 
of their own number were now in possession of this very 
property. 



LADY JANE GREY. BLOODY MARY. 221 

There was nothing about Philip to attract the English. 
He was so haughty and reserved that he took no notice 
of the salutations of even the highest nobility, and so 
hemmed in by formal rules of etiquette that it was impos- 
sible to approach him. He was the most unpopular man 
in England. 

A reign of horror was now to open in that country 
which has affixed forever the epithet of "Bloody" to the 
name of Henry VIII. ; s oldest daughter. By the renewal 
of the laws against heresy, every Protestant in England 
was made liable to be burnt at the stake, and the prisons 
were soon filled to overflowing. The first victim was 
John Rogers, a clergyman, whose wife and ten young 
children were present at the stake to witness his suffer- 
ings. He was burnt at Smithfield, a place then in the 
suburbs of London, but now in the heart of the city, 
where a "Martyrs' Memorial" has been erected, which 
keeps alive the memory of their constancy and their fate. 
Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, was taken to his own 
cathedral city to end his life. The flames consumed him 
very slowly; but while lingering in frightful agony, he re- 
mained calm and quiet; and died, we are told, "like a 
child in its bed." 

Another of the early martyrs, Rowland Taylor, rector 
of Hadleigh, could not put aside his spirit of humor even 
at the last dreadful moment. While going to the stake 
he remarked, "the worms in Hadleigh church -yard will 
be deceived, for the carcass that should have been theirs 
will be burnt to ashes." At the stake, a brutal man threw 
a fagot at him, which wounded him so that the blood ran 
down his face. "Oh, friend," said he, "I had harm enough; 
what needed that?" and he died calmly, like the others. 



222 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Gardiner and Bonner, the queen's principal agents in 
this deadly work, were constantly urged on by Mary and 
her council to more zealous efforts. Among the individ- 
ual cases which stand out from the crowd of less distin- 
guished but equally heroic martyrs, are the two bishops, 
Ridley and Latimer, who suffered death together, chained 
to the same stake. Ridley was a man in the prime of 
life; Latimer was more than eighty years old. He said 
to his brother martyr as they stood waiting for the fire to 
be lighted, "Be of good comfort, master Ridley, and play 
the man ! We shall this day light such a candle, by God's 
grace, in England, as shall never be put out." 

The most illustrious of the victims, Archbishop Cran- 
mer, remained to be dealt with. The queen had a per- 
sonal reason for disliking him, even if he had not been 
a heretic, for he had pronounced the divorce between 
her father and mother; but in addition to this, he had 
imprudently uttered violent tirades against the Romish 
Church in the beginning of Mary's reign, and his con- 
demnation was a foregone conclusion. He was not nat- 
urally a man of strong character, and long imprisonment 
and harsh treatment had enfeebled him still further. He 
recanted, on the promise that his life should be spared. 
When he found, however, that this was only a trick to- 
increase his disgrace, and that he was first to make a 
public address in support of the Romish doctrines and 
then to be led at once to the stake, his courage revived, 
and he astonished his audience by a full and emphatic 
declaration of his Protestant belief. He wavered no- 
more, but went cheerfully to his death, and when the fire 
was kindled, thrust into the flames his right hand (with 
which he had signed the recantation) and held it there for 



LADY JANE GREY. BLOODY MARY. 223 

some time, saying, "This hand has offended." Such ex- 
ecutions had an effect contrary to the one anticipated r 
and, as has been said, "Each martyrdom was equal to a 
hundred sermons." It is computed that two hundred 
and seventy -seven persons, including four children, suf- 
fered death by fire during the last three years of Bloody 
Mary's reign. 

Queen Mary was always devotedly fond of her hus- 
band, though he treated her with neglect and indifference. 
For him she declared war against France, a country with 
which England was at peace, and sent several thousand 
soldiers there to help him. A great battle was fought at 
St. Quentin, where the Spaniards were victorious; but 
the English soldiers were sharp enough to see that they 
were not fighting the battles of England, and they grum- 
bled and growled so much that Philip was glad to get rid 
of them and send them home again (1557). The next 
year the Duke of Guise, uncle 01 Mary Queen of Scots, 
and the finest soldier in France, longing to revenge the 
disgrace of St. Quentin (from which Dattle he had been 
absent), determined to retake the town of Calais.* This 
fortress was supposed to be impregnable, but it was poorly 
guarded, for the English were lukewarm in carrying on 
the unacceptable war, and did not supply the governor 
with the soldiers needed. The Duke of Guise, too, was 
a general who knew how to take advantage of the weak 
points of his enemy; and in eight days the fortress which 
it had taken Edward III. eleven months of hard work to 
acquire, was retaken and became again a possession of 



* For a further account of this war, see "A Short History or 
France," p. 178. 



224 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

France (1558) after having belonged to England for two 
hundred and eleven years. 

The people of England were so indignant at the folly 
of the queen in entering into this causeless war that 
they almost forgot to be mortified at the disaster to their 
arms, and when Philip offered his help to get Calais back 
again, Parliament said they were too poor to spend any 
more money on it. But to Queen Mary, already broken 
in health, it was like a death-blow. "When I die," she 
exclaimed, "the word 'Calais' will be found written on 
my heart." 

She did not live long after this shock. Mortification 
at the neglect of her husband, who never came near her 
again after having drawn her into the French war, aggra- 
vated the fever she was suffering from ; and she died at 
forty-two years ol age, atter a snort and dreadful feign of 
less than five years (1558). Cardinal Pole (who had been 
made Archbishop ot Canterbury in Cranmer's place) died 
twenty -four hours afterward. 

Queen Mary's reign did good in a certain way, namely, 
by showing the outrages which such principles as hers 
lead to, and by preventing Englishmen from ever again 
bowing under a yoke so degrading. 

One gleam of commercial interest lights up the dark 
monotony of this reign. Some English navigators, in 
sailing along the northern coast of Europe, discovered a 
passage to Archangel, on the White Sea, which led to the 
Czar of Muscovy's* sending ambassadors to ask the 
friendship of England. This is the first appearance of 
the Russian nation in the courts of Western Europe. 

* Muscovy is the old name for Russia. 




ELIZABETH. MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 225 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 

ELIZABETH. MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 

ITH a sudden turn, England whirled around to 
Protestantism on the death of Mary. The 
great fabric of Popery, which Mary had so 
labored to build up, vanished almost in a moment when 
her vigorous, energetic, popular sister took her place on 
the throne. As the Spanish ambassador, Feria, whimsi- 
cally said in a letter to Philip: "There is not a heretic 
or traitor in all the country who has not started as if from 
the grave to seek her with expressions of the greatest 
pleasure." These remarks did not at all hinder Philip 
from writing to ask his sister-in-law to marry him, offer- 
ing at the same time to obtain a dispensation from the 
pope for that purpose; but she put him off civilly, being 
too quick-witted not to see that such a marriage would 
be a repetition of her father's with Katherine of Aragon, 
an example she had no wish to follow. 

Elizabeth had been brought up from her very baby- 
hood in adversity. This fact, with her natural discretion, 
helped her to say and do, at least in the early part of her 
career, always the right thing at the right moment. Pop- 
ularity came to her without an effort. On arriving in 
London from her country house at Hatfield, where she 
was living when she received the news of her sister's 
death, she was welcomed with uproarious joy. She was 
now twenty -five years old, tall, well made, and of a pleas- 
ing countenance. 

Not one of the bishops, who were all, of course, Rom- 
15 



226 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

anists, was willing to perform the ceremony of corona- 
tion. At last the Bishop of Carlisle, was prevailed upon 
to set the crown upon her head. She did not mate 
enemies by taking immediate action on this refusal; but 
they were soon afterward required, by act of Parliament, 
to take the "Oath of Supremacy," and those who did not 
meet this test were deposed and their places gradually 
filled by Protestants. It is estimated that nearly ten 
thousand of the inferior clergy took the oath acknowledg- 
ing the queen to be head of the Church. 

On the morning after the coronation, as Elizabeth was- 
going to chapel, one of the courtiers addressed her in a 
loud voice, reminding her that it was the custom for a 
new sovereign to release some prisoners, and saying that 
there were four or five for whom he begged this favor,, 
namely, the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and 
John, and also St. Paul, who had so long been shut up 
in a foreign tongue that they were unable to converse 
with the people. Elizabeth gravely answered that it were 
oest to inquire of them whether they wished to be re- 
leased or not. The matter was referred to a convocation 
of the clergy, by whose authority a new translation of the 
Scriptures was ordered. Matthew Parker, the new Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, a truly good and learned man, was 
entrusted with carrying this out, and caused a version to 
be prepared called "The Bishops' Bible," which appeared 
in 1568, and was the authorized one until superseded by 
that now in use by us. The queen at the same time com- 
manded that the church service should again be read in 
the common tongue; and this liturgy, being in the main 
the same with the second one of Edward VI. (1552) is- 
the one still used in England, and, with slight change, in 



ELIZABETH. MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 227 

America. At the same time with the law regarding the 
queen's supremacy, was passed another called the Act of 
Uniformity, which required the liturgy of the English 
prayer-book to be used in religious worship, and forbade 
all ministers to adopt any other form. These two acts, 
of Supremacy and Uniformity, settled the question of a 
national religion. For the queen's assistance in carrying 
out these measures, she was empowered by Parliament 
to name such commissioners, either laymen or clergy- 
men; and out of this grew the famous Court of High 
Commission, of which we shall hear again. 

Queen Elizabeth showed especial good judgment in 
the choice of her ministers. William Cecil, afterward 
Lord Burleigh, was made secretary of state, and contin- 
ued for the forty years from the beginning of Elizabeth's 
reign to his death in 1598, to be her prime minister. Sir 
Nicholas Bacon, father of the still greater Francis Bacon, 
was appointed lord keeper of the great seal. 

The spirit of the whole reign was shown in the first 
speech of Bacon to Parliament. He said he trusted that 
"contumelious and opprobrious words such as heretic, 
schismatic, papist, would be banished out of men's 
mouths." Every thing that was done about religion was 
distinguished by moderation, and the great change was 
effected quietly. The first Parliament held after the 
coronation begged the queen to choose a husband for 
herself (which would have been no difficult matter, as 
nearly every royal bachelor or widower in Europe wished 
to marry her), but she answered very firmly that the 
height of her ambition was to have inscribed on her 
tombstone that a queen, having lived and reigned so 
many years, died a virgin. 



228 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Her royal cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, now became 
for a short time queen of France by the death of her 
father-in-law, Henry II. She and her young husband, 
Francis II., foolishly took the title of king and queen of 
England, and Elizabeth, very indignant, sent an army to 
Scotland to help the party organized there against Mary 
and her French advisers. Scotland was a strongly Pro- 
testant country, and the people were determined that 
Romanism should not get the upper hand there as it had 
done in England under Mary. John Knox, the famous 
Puritan preacher, used the whole force of his eloquence 
against the popish party, and the Roman religion was 
abolished in Scotland, except that it was permitted to 
the queen herself to hear mass with her household. It 
was also agreed that she should no longer use the title 
of queen of England. Just at this time her husband 
died, and she was obliged, most unwillingly, to return to 
her native land. On leaving France, she had her 
couch spread on the deck of the vessel, so that with the 
last ray of light she could still see that beloved country, 
and in touching language she bade it farewell. She was 
received in Scotland with such enthusiasm as would 
naturally be shown to a beautiful young widow of nine- 
teen, with gracious and winning manners; but nothing 
could make her countrymen forget that she was a papist. 

The first dozen years of Elizabeth's reign were passed 
in profound peace, except for the slight disturbance with 
Scotland. With the help of her able ministers she paid 
off a large part of the public debt; restored to its full 
value the coin, which had been greatly debased during 
Edward VI.'s time ; introduced the manufacture of gun- 
powder and brass cannon, and built so many ships that 



ELIZABETH. MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 229 

she was called "the queen of the northern seas." She 
promoted trade and manufactures, and was to some 
extent a patron of literary men, though she was very- 
careful of money and always managed to make other 
people spend it when possible. 

Queen Elizabeth had some very mean qualities as well 
as many great ones. She was extremely vain, and loved 
flattery so much that no one could gain her favor with- 
out using adulation to an extent which now seems dis- 
graceful. 

"Till [her] relish grown callous, almost to disease, 
Who peppered the highest was surest to please. " 

The queen's greatest favorite, Robert Dudley, earl of 
Leicester, came of a family distinguished for its bad 
qualities. He was the son of that Duke of Northum- 
berland who had ruined the life of Lady Jane Grey, and 
grandson of the unjust judge of Henry VII. He was 
base enough to do anything to keep the queen's favor, 
and there was even a report that he had killed his wife, 
Amy Robsart,* in the hope of marrying Elizabeth. But 
nothing could be proved against him, and, mean-souled 
as he was, he continued to be her favorite till the day of 
his death. 

The Queen of Scots married her cousin, Lord Darnley, 
a handsome but weak and low-minded youth, some years 
younger than herself, whom she soon grew tired of and 
treated with contempt. "Unless she was freed of him," 
she said, "she had no desire to live." There was in her 
court an Italian musician named David Rizziot whom 

*See Sir Walter Scott's novel of "Kenilworth." 
+ Pronounced Ritzio. 



230 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Mary had made her private secretary, and with whom 
she was on terms of intimacy that displeased her hus- 
band. Darnley formed a conspiracy with some Scottish 
lords to murder the favorite. They entered the queen's 
room as she was at supper with him and others of her 
attendants, and stabbed Rizzio to death in her presence. 
The stain of his blood may yet be seen on the floor 
of Holyrood palace. Not long after this, Mary gave 
birth to a son who received the name of James. He 
became the sixth Stuart king in succession bearing that 
name, and we shall meet him in English history as 
James the First of England and Sixth of Scotland. 

Mary was furiously angry against all who had taken 
part in the murder of Rizzio, and loaded her husband 
with insults or treated him with haughty neglect. Darn- 
ley not long afterward was found murdered, and sus- 
picion fell upon the Earl of Bothwell, a worthless and 
dissipated person who was in high favor with the queen; 
and, as she married him soon after Darnley's death, it 
is natural to think that she did not disapprove of the 
crime. She was forced to dismiss Bothwell, who became 
an outcast, and died, insane, ten years afterward. 

Mary was now virtually a prisoner. After the battle 
of Carberry Hill, which she lost, she was conducted back 
to Edinburgh between two of the confederate lords, 
while the air rang with the curses of the infuriated rab- 
ble, who looked upon her as the murderess of her hus- 
band. A banner was carried before her on which was 
painted the body of Darnley lying under a tree with a 
child kneeling beside it, and the motto, "Judge and 
avenge my cause, oh Lord!" When she awoke the next 
morning, the same banner was hung up in front of her 



ELIZABETH. MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 231 

window. The same day, she was taken to the castle of 
Lochleven, situated on a small island in the lake of that 
name, where she was obliged to sign an agreement to 
resign the crown to her son and to appoint the Earl of 
Murray, her half-brother, regent of the kingdom during 
James's minority. The young prince was crowned by 
the name of James VI. and the Parliament, voting that 
the queen was an accomplice in Darnley's murder, con- 
demned her to imprisonment. She effected her escape 
from Lochleven Castle in a very romantic manner,* 
and, raising an army, fought one commanded by 
the regent, near Glasgow, where she was completely 
defeated. Flying southward with all possible haste, 
she got on board a fishing-boat which landed her on the 
same*day in England, and from Carlisle she sent a mes- 
sage to Elizabeth asking for her friendship and protec- 
tion. The English queen replied that she must first 
have proof that her cousin was innocent of the crimes 
charged against her. With Mary's consent, a sort of trial 
was held in London, at which both her friends and ene- 
mies offered testimony in the case; but it came to 
nothing, and she remained for nineteen years a prisoner 
in the hands of Elizabeth. 

All through the last half of the sixteenth century, the 
question of religion, in some form, was the cause of ex- 
citement and turmoil. From the time that the Roman 
Church ceased to be catholic — that is, universal, — the 
struggle between its doctrines and other forms of belief 
was incessant; and as people had not then learned the 
great lesson of toleration as it is called, in other words 

*For a truthful description of this escape see Sir Walter Scott's 
novel of "The Abbot," Chapter XXXV. 



232 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

of allowing each one to keep his own belief unless he 
can be persuaded to accept a better one, the result was 
strife and bloodshed instead of peace and good-will. In 
France a deadly civil war was going on between the 
Catholics and the Huguenots (French Protestants); in 
the Netherlands, Philip II. of Spain, formerly the hus- 
band of Elizabeth's sister Mary, was persecuting his 
Protestant subjects by burning, torturing, beheading, and 
burying alive those who would not conform to his own 
religion; and in England two parties had arisen among 
the Protestants themselves whose feelings against each 
other were as bitter, though not as bloodily expressed, 
as those of either party against the Catholics. On one 
side stood the English Church established by law, with a 
ritual or form of service, and on the other the Puritans, 
those who thought the Church not yet sufficiently puri- 
fied from what they called the abominations of Rome, 
and who wished a simple kind of worship, without set 
forms or a dress peculiar to the clergy. 

Elizabeth had already sent some help to the Hugue- 
nots in France, when the horrible "Massacre of St 
Bartholemew,"* occurred, in which many thousands of 
them were murdered. This outrage, together with the no 
less frightful occurences in the Netherlands, kindled a 
flame of indignation in England which was fanned into 
fury by events in that country which, to the excited minds 
of the people, threatened them with similar dangers. 

* See "A Short History of France," p. 189. 




THE NAVIGATORS. MARY STUART. 233 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

PLOTS. THE NAVIGATORS. MARY STUART. 

HE disturbances caused by religous differences, 
while agitating different countries in different 
ways, made themselves most strongly felt in 
England through the plots formed by the Catholics 
against Elizabeth's government. The conspirators were 
encouraged in these by a bull of excommunication issued 
against her by Pope Pius V. declaring her title null and 
void, and absolving her subjects from their allegiance. 
These events bore fruit in a plan made to marry the 
English Duke of Norfolk, a Romanist, to the Scottish 
Queen Mary, seize and imprison Elizabeth, by the help 
of Spanish soldiers who were to land in the country, and 
proclaim Mary queen of England. The plot was dis- 
covered, and Norfolk and others were executed. 

The discovery of the methods used by Mary and her 
friends made it necessary to watch the captive queen 
very closely, though in spite of the vigilance used it was 
found impossible to prevent her from having constant 
correspondence with the outer world. 

During all this time, the wars of religion in France 
were growing fiercer and the persecution in the Nether- 
lands more horrible. In one way, these were both of 
benefit to England; they drove to her shores a great 
body of well-taught workmen, who were welcomed in the 
manufacturing districts and found ample occasion there 
for exercising their skill. The queen paid off with 
interest the entire public debt, part of which had been 



234 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

accumulating since her father's time; and this was so 
unusual a practice with the crowned heads of Europe 
that it gave the stamp of stability to her government. 

The people of the Netherlands were still struggling for 
their liberty, and had more than once asked Elizabeth 
to be their queen, feeling that with her help they could 
get rid of the atrocities of Spanish rule. She declined, 
but sent them some troops (1585), under the command 
of her favorite, the Earl of Leicester. A person more 
unfit for the office of commander could scarcely have 
been found. Leicester had neither military talent nor 
experience, while Philip's general, Alexander of Parma, 
was the first captain of the age. Thrilling deeds of 
heroism were performed by individual commanders, and 
the common soldiers fought bravely; but the queen's 
parsimony led her to leave the army for months at a 
time without pay, and then their condition became so 
scandalous that there was nothing the Dutch desired so 
much as to get rid of them. 

The fate of Sir Philip Sidney, "the mirror of knight- 
hood," the most accomplished man of the time, was 
especially sad. He perished in an unwisely- planned 
attack on the enemy near Zutphen, in Holland (1586). 
We give a story of his generosity in the words of his 
friend, Lord Brooke: "Passing along by the rear of the 
army and being thirsty with excess of bleeding, he called 
for some drink, which was presently brought him. But 
as he was putting the bottle to his mouth he saw a poor 
soldier carried along who had eaten his last at the same 
feast, ghastly casting up his eyes at the bottle; which 
Sir Philip perceiving, took it from his head before he 
drank, and delivered it to the poor man with these words: 



THE NAVIGATORS. MARY STUART. 235 

'Thy necessity is yet greater than mine.'" Such is the 
stuff that heroes are made of; a whole character is told 
in this little tale. 

Meanwhile, England's explorers and navigators were 
not idle. Francis Drake was the second person to sail 
around the globe (i 577-1 580), the Portuguese under 
Magellan having accomplished the same feat nearly sixty 
years before. Drake, on his way, took many rich Span- 
ish prizes, though there was no open war between Eng- 
land and Spain at the time. The queen, instead of re- 
proaching him for this breach of the law of nations, 
knighted him, and allowed him to give her a banquet at 
Deptford on board the ship which had made the suc- 
cessful voyage. Another navigator, John Davis, in try- 
ing to find a northwest passage to the Pacific, discovered 
the strait which bears his name; Sir Martin Frobisher 
found another in the same part of the world which is 
also called after him; and Sir John Hawkins, one of the 
boldest of those adventurers, has the unenviable repu- 
tation of having been the first Englishman to engage in 
the African slave-trade. All these were mere sailors, 
brought into notice by their enterprise, perseverance, and 
courage. There were others, however, of a higher social 
rank, who did their share in exploring new countries and 
unknown seas. Among these were Sir Walter Raleigh 
and his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert. The latter, 
before setting out on his last voyage, received from the 
■queen a gift of a small gold anchor guided by a lady, as 
a token of her esteem. After many adventures, and the 
loss of the largest ship of his little fleet, he started to 
return to England; but during the voyage a storm arose 
-and separated his vessel, the Squirrel, from her consort. 



236 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Before they parted he called out to those on the other 
ship, "We are as near Heaven by sea as by land! " The 
Squirrel was never seen again. 

Sir Walter Raleigh's is one of the most brilliant figures 
in the Elizabethan gallery. He seems to have been a 
born courtier, as well as an adventurer, for there is a 
story that on his first meeting with the queen he threw 
down his rich cloak in a muddy path that she might not 
wet her feet. If he did not do this he might have done 
it, and probably would have done it if the opportunity 
had occurred. At any rate, he stood high in the queen's 
favor, and he had the privilege of naming the new land, 
which he called Virginia, in honor of the Virgin Queen.* 
He sent out a colony which settled on Roanoke Island, 
near North Carolina (1585), but it did not thrive, and 
the next year, when Sir Francis Drake came along, the 
colonists were glad to return with him to England. 
Raleigh was not yet discouraged by his ill- success. The 
following year he sent another colony to the same place, 
providing it with all things necessary ; but at the end of 
three years it had entirely disappeared, and he had 
already spent so much money on it that he was obliged - 
to give up any further attempts at colonization. 

We have now arrived at what Motley calls the tragedy 
of Mary Stuart: "A sad but inevitable portion of the 
vast drama in which the emancipation of England and 
Holland, and through them of half Christendom, 
approached its catastrophe." Mary's whole life in Eng- 
land had been a torment to Elizabeth. Her partisans- 
were constantly intriguing with the agents of foreign 

* This name was originally given to the whole Atlantic coast* 
from Maine to the Spanish settlements in Elorida. 



THE NAVIGATORS. MARY STUART. 237 

countries to try in some way to compass Elizabeth's 
death, and the assassination of the patriot and states- 
man, William of Orange (1584), encouraged hopes of 
success in such attempts. In 1586, some Roman Cath- 
olic priests in the seminary at Rheims, in France, had 
worked themselves up to a pitch of frantic fanaticism, 
and thought it would be a noble deed to destroy Eliza- 
beth, restore the Catholic religion, and place the Queen 
of Scots on the throne. They found a ready accomplice 
in England in Sir Anthony Babington, a young man oi 
family and fortune, who entered eagerly into their plans 
and drew into the conspiracy many Romanists of posi- 
tion and wealth. 

It happened, however, that these plots were not kept 
so secret but that they came to the knowledge of Sir 
Francis Walsingham, one of the queen's secretaries of 
state; who by means of his spies knew every step as 
soon as it was taken. He allowed the conspiracy to go 
on until all the evidence was collected necessary to con- 
vict the actors in it. A traitor in the castle where Mary 
was confined received and passed on to her the letters 
addressed to her (which were sometimes concealed in a 
box conveyed in a barrel of beer), and she answered 
them, never dreaming that they were leading her to her 
own destruction. At last, when the plot was fully ripe, 
the conspirators were seized, tried, and condemned, the 
evidence against them being so complete that no defence 
could be made. 

Elizabeth hesitated long before taking the final step 
with regard to Mary. Not only the Parliament, but all 
Protestant England, clamored for the death of the Scot- 
tish queen, and Elizabeth, yielding at last, ordered her 



238 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

to be tried at Fotheringay Castle (to which place she 
had been removed after the discovery of Babington's 
conspiracy), by a court held there for the purpose. 
Before this court, which was composed of both Cath- 
olics and Protestants, she denied everything; declared 
that the letters to Babington in her own handwriting had 
been forged; denied that she had ever received any from 
him, and defended herself with great spirit and ingenu- 
ity, but without avail. "The daughter of debate" was 
condemned, and adjudged worthy of death. 

Parliament ratified the finding of the court, and the 
people in general were so wildly happy over the verdict, 
that they rang the bells and lighted bonfires, and went 
about London streets shouting for joy. Elizabeth, how- 
ever, though she may in her secret soul have desired 
Mary's death, was painfully perplexed. She hesitated 
long before signing the death-warrant, and after this had 
been done and the fatal paper sent on its way, she tried 
to lay the blame on her ministers, especially on her 
unfortunate secretary, Davison, who was thrown into 
prison and heavily fined for doing his plain duty in the 
matter. If Elizabeth had boldly taken upon herself the 
responsibility of her own actions, defending the death of 
Mary as a necessity of state, she might have been blamed 
but she would not have been despised. As it is, there 
is something contemptible in her being willing to share 
the profit but not the odium of the transaction. "Will- 
ing to wound and yet afraid to strike." 

Four months passed between the condemnation and 
the execution of Mary Stuart (October, 1586 — February, 
3587), and in this time the kings of France and Scotland 
interceded for her in vain. Her son, James VI., blus- 



THE NAVIGATORS. MARY STUART. 239 

tered a good deal, but was easily pacified. He was now 
twenty-one years old and might have shown some spirit ; 
but he was of a timorous disposition and did not choose 
to quarrel with his powerful neighbor. The remonstrances 
from France passed over Elizabeth as the idle wind. 

Mary Stuart, like many persons who have done ill in 
their lives, never appeared to more advantage than in 
her last hours. She was beheaded in the great hall of 
Fotheringay Castle, where a scaffold had been erected 
covered with black cloth, an executioner dressed in 
black velvet standing beside it. Sir Andrew Melville, 
her ambassador to England in the days of her youth and 
beauty, was with her to the end. She had wished to 
have the services of a priest, but this was refused, and 
instead the Dean of Peterborough exhorted her to 
become converted to the Protestant faith. She told him 
not to trouble himself about her, for that as she had 
lived a Catholic she would die one; and she began to 
pray in Latin while he was praying in English, neither 
one taking any notice of the other. Afterward she 
prayed in English for Christ's afflicted church, for her 
son and for the Queen of England. The Earl of Kent, 
one of the functionaries on this occasion, told her to 
"leave those trumperies." A cloth was pinned over her 
face by her maids; and then, groping for the block, as 
Lady Jane Grey had done, she laid down her head, and 
two strokes severed it from her body. Her little dog, 
who had stolen upon the scaffold unperceived, was found 
nestling among the folds of her gown, and refused to 
leave her dead body. 

And this was the end of beauty without principle, pas- 
sions without self-restraint, and ability without truthful- 



240 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ness. If Mary Stuart's intellect had been guided by a 
desire to do right, and her beauty accompanied by sin- 
cerity and tenderness, there would be a fragrance around 
her name that would be only the sweeter for her misfor- 
tunes. As it is, we can pity her sorrows, but we must 
condemn her crimes. 

Mary died in her forty -fifth year, having been nomi- 
nally queen since she was five days old, and having 
reigned after her return from France about seven years. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE ARMADA. IRELAND. DEATH OF THE QUEEN. 

HILIP II. of Spain had for three years been 




making preparations for the conquest of Eng- 
land, when the "Invincible Armada,"* at last 
fully equipped for sea, sailed out of the port of Lisbon, t 
June, 1588. There had been a detention on account of 
the death of the admiral, who was succeeded by the Duke 
of Medina Sidonia, a brave soldier, but totally unac- 
quainted with the sea. No expense had been spared; 
there were 130 ships, the greater part of them larger 
and heavier than had ever been used in European war- 
fare, carrying 33,000 men and 3,000 cannon. The Ar- 
mada had been more than a month on the way, and the 
English thought it was not coming at all; when it was 
seen from the Lizard, J one bright day in July, crowding 
all sail to enter the English Channel. 

* Armada, the Spanish term for a large war fleet. 
+ Portugal belonged to Spain from 1580 to 1640. 
% The most southern point of England. 



THE ARMADA. IRELAND. 241 

While the Spanish fleet was in preparation, Sir Francis 
Drake had been hovering off the coast of Spain, and had 
taken a hundred ships near Cadiz, beside destroying 
great quantities of provisions and ammunition. In Eng- 
land, all the available vessels had been made ready, partly 
by the use of public money and partly by free gifts from 
the cities and seaport towns. The ships were very small 
compared to those of the Spaniards, and carried not 
much more than half as many men. Lord Howard of 
Effingham was in command of the English fleet; Drake, 
Hawkins, and Frobisher were among his captains, while 
Raleigh was in charge of a land force. A camp was 
formed at Tilbury, near London, and the queen rode 
among the troops encouraging and animating them. "I 
know that I have but the body of a weak and feeble 
woman," said she, "but I have the heart of a king, and 
of a king of England!" 

The Spanish fleet advanced up the Channel in the form 
of a crescent, seven miles from tip to tip. Lord Howard 
had scarcely time to get out of Plymouth harbor before 
it passed; and fearing that he could not attack the whole 
fleet to advantage, he contented himself with lying in 
wait for such vessels as should be separated from the 
rest, and in this way captured two of the largest galleons, 
one of which was loaded with treasure. For several 
nights, beacon -fires had been lighted on various parts of 
the southern coast, to give notice to the inhabitants of 
the Spaniards' approach.* By constantly annoying the 

* "Swift to east and swift to west the warning radiance spread — 

High on St. Michael's Mount it shone, it shone on Beachy Head. 

Far o'er the deep the Spaniards saw, along each southern shire, 

Cape beyond cape, in endless range, those twinkling points of fire. " 

— Macaulay, " The Armada. " 
16 



242 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

enemy, hanging on the rear of the fleet and darting in 
and out with their light and easily-managed vessels while 
the clumsy Spanish ones were trying to get into position, 
the English did much damage to the enemy.* One night 
Howard took eight of his least valuable ships, and, filling 
them with combustibles, set fire to them and sent them 
adrift among the Spanish galleons; the latter were seized 
with a panic, and cutting their cables they fled in con- 
fusion; the English pursued them, and the next morning 
found them in all haste speeding away from Calais, where 
they had taken refuge. 

The Spanish admiral did not dare to return with his 
demoralized fleet through the Channel. He turned north- 
ward and made the best of his way through the German 
Oceant to the Orkneys, followed and harassed by the 
English ; and had not the ammunition of the latter given 
out, they might have captured the whole Spanish fleet.. 
A violent tempest overtook the Armada after it had 
passed the Orkneys, destroying or crippling many ves- 
sels; and another drove a part of it on the coast of Ire- 
land, where such men as reached the shore were butch- 
ered by the natives. Less than half the ships that had 
-sailed so proudly out of Lisbon, two months before, ever 
again saw the coast of Spain. The Invincible Armada 
was conquered (1588)4 

The joy, the exultation, the heartfelt gratitude of the 
English may be imagined. Thanksgivings went up from 

* Lord Howard wrote to Walsingham, "Their force is wonder- 
fully great and strong, and yet we pluck their feathers by little and 
little." 

+ The North Sea. 

% See Kingsley's novel, "Westward Ho!" 



THE ARMADA. IRELAND. 243 

every church in the land, and the love and admiration 
for the queen rose almost to idolatry. On one of the. 
medals struck to commemorate the great deliverance 
was a good parody of Caesar's famous despatch. The 
English one ran: "Venit, vidit, fugit."* 

The queen's pleasure in this victory was tempered by 
a private grief. The Earl of Leicester, perhaps the only 
person for whom she ever felt a real affection, died soon 
after the last Spanish sail disappeared from English 
waters. His place in her favor was apparently taken by 
his step-son, the Earl of Essex, a young man of agreeable 
manners and many accomplishments, and not lacking in 
fine qualities, though reckless and ill -balanced. Upon 
one occasion, he so far forgot himself as to turn his back 
upon her with an insulting laugh when she refused to 
comply with his wishes. Elizabeth had her own way of 
treating such offences, and gave him a box on the ear 
with her jewelled fingers, telling him to "go, and be 
hanged." After this interchange of courtesies Essex re- 
tired from court, and was with difficulty persuaded by his 
friends to make friends again with his royal mistress. 

Meantime, the war with Spain went on. Eight years 
after the failure of the great Armada, the city of Cadiz 
was taken and plundered, under the direction of Essex. t 
fn 1598, Philip II. died, and though no definite peace 
was made, there was little fighting done during the re- 
mainder of the queen's life -time. 

* He came, he saw, he fled. 

+ Lord Macaulay says of this, that it was "the most brilliant mili- 
tary exploit achieved on the continent by English arms during the 
interval w rich elapsed between the battle of Agincourt and that of 
Blenheim' r ( 141 5-1 704). 



244 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

The Irish were at this time still half- savage, and had 
never become reconciled to English rule.* The Earl of 
Tyrone, a native chieftain of great ability, headed a re- 
bellion against Elizabeth, and had already given much 
trouble when Essex, at his own request, was sent to take 
command in Ireland. He was not able to bring the war 
to a conclusion, though he made a truce, during which 
he left his post, contrary to the queen's express orders, 
and hastened to London, where he presented himself 
before her without being announced.t The queen was 
so startled that she received him graciously, at which he 
expressed himself much comforted; but when she had 
had time to think it over she was very indignant at his 
presumption, and ordered him to be confined to his own 
house. He, as well as every one else about the court, 
expected that he would soon be restored to his old posi- 
tion as her favorite. He was set at liberty, but the 
queen refused to see him. Every account from Ireland 
brought fresh news of his misgovernment there, and he 
was too popular with the English people to be secure 
from her jealousy. When he asked for a renewal of his 
monopoly of sweet wines she refused to grant it, saying 
(though not to him) that "an unruly beast must be 

* Henry VII. 's solution of the problem as it existed in his time, 
was ingenious. When the Earl of Desmond boldly defied the Eng- 
lish government, some one in the council said, impatiently, " All 
Ireland can not rule this man." "Then he shall rule all Ireland, " 
said the king, and made him Lord Deputy. 

+ The chronicle of the time says: "He stayed not till he came 
to the queen's bedchamber, where he found the queen newly up, 
with her hair about her face. * * 'Tis much wondered at 
that he went so boldly to her majesty's presence, she not being 
ready, and he so full of dirt and mire that his very face wa i full of it. n 



THE ARMADA. IRELAND. 245 

stinted in his provender." He was unwise enough to 
make the remark that "the queen was an old woman as 
crooked in her mind as she was in her body." Busy- 
bodies took care to report this speech, which, being 
made about the vainest woman in Europe, was not likely 
to increase her good temper. The hot-headed favorite 
now became a rebel in good earnest. He formed, with 
a few other persons as foolish as himself, a conspiracy 
against the queen's government, which was discovered 
and the chief offenders executed. It was a long time 
before Elizabeth could make up her mind to sign the 
death warrant of Essex, and when it was done she re- 
gretted it for the rest of her life. 

Lord Mountjoy, the successor of Essex in Ireland, 
found everything there in the worst possible condition, 
but managed so well that in three years the rebellion was 
at an end. Yet the submission of Tyrone brought no 
joy to the queen. Life had lost its zest. Her people 
no longer greeted her appearance with rapture, as they 
had done at Tilbury Fort or on one of her earlier "pro- 
gresses."* They looked on in silence, and she missed 
the old enthusiastic welcome. For a while after Essex's 
death the queen kept up the old habits — hunting, danc- 
ing, travelling, playing on the "virginals" (a kind of an- 
cestor of the modern piano), and trying to feel that no- 
thing had changed; but age was creeping upon her, and 
she was not in sympathy with the more serious temper of 
the nation. A story is told, not on the best authority, 
but generally believed, of a bitter experience that came 
to her some time after her favorite's death. She had 
given him a ring (so it is said), promising that if he ever 

* Royal journeys through different parts of the kingdom. 



246 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

got into trouble and would send her the ring, she would 
help him. Not receiving it, she came to the conclusion 
that Essex's obstinacy and "highmindedness" had pre- 
vented his appealing to her, and therefore allowed him 
to be executed. A month or two before her death, the 
Countess of Nottingham, being on her own death-bed, 
sent for her and confessed that Essex had intrusted her 
with the ring, and that her husband, who was a political 
enemy of Essex, had forbidden her to carry it to the 
queen. Upon this, Elizabeth shook the dying woman in 
her bed, crying, "God may forgive you, but I never will I" 
Such is the story. There are several circumstances 
against it, but a ring, said to be the one about which the 
tale is told, is still in existence. 

Elizabeth's last weeks were very sad ones. She would 
sit speechless for days together, in the deepest melan- 
choly; and once called for a sword, with which she made 
aimless motions, as if she were guarding against an 
attack. Sir Robert Cary, her kinsman, visited her, and, 
says: "She fetched forty or fifty great sighs, which sur- 
prised me, for in all my lifetime I never knew her fetch 
a sigh except when the queen of Scots was beheaded." 
She refused to go to bed, but sat, propped up with 
cushions, and took no notice of any one. Once she was 
roused into a moment's exhibition of the old spirit, when 
Sir Robert Cecil (who was the son of Lord Burleigh, and 
succeeded him as prime minister) told her she "must" 
go to bed. "Must!" she exclaimed. "Little man, 
little man!* thy father, if he had been alive, durst not 
have used that word !" When the old question of the 
succession was brought up, and the name of Lord Beau- 

* Cecil was hump -backed and of very small stature. 



THE ARMADA. IRELAND. 247 

•champ* (a distant relative of her own) was proposed, 
she said, "I will have no rascal's son, but a king." 
""Rascal" meant a common person; with her, a subject. 
When she was asked if it should be the king of Scots, 
she put her hands above her head, to signify a crown, it 
was said, but could not speak. After this she sank into 
a lethargy, and died unconscious, March 24, 1603, in 
the seventieth year of her age and the forty-fifth of her 
reign. 

This great queen was so wise about some things and 
so foolish about others, so large-minded and yet so mean, 
at once so keen-sighted and so blind, that one needs to 
study her character from many points of view to get a 
correct idea of it. She loved England with her whole 
heart; and though wilful and capricious, like her father, 
did not let these faults interfere with the people's inter- 
ests. She lacked refinement, and was perfectly indiffer- 
ent to truth when falsehood would serve her turn better, 
while her temper was never restrained except by policy.t 
Abusive and profane words were always at her command, 
and she never scrupled to use them. Her appetite for 
flattery was insatiable. Nothing could be too gross for 
her; at least in social life. If any one tried it at the 
council-board, he was soon reminded that they were met 
there for business. Her vanity, even when she was an 
old woman, made her so jealous of other women that her 
courtiers often kept their marriages secret for fear of ex- 
citing her wrath. Leicester, Raleigh, and Essex, all mar- 

* Pronounced Beech'am. 

+ The Earl of Huntington complained, in a letter still preserved 
in the British Museum, that on the occasion of some quarrel she 
M pinched his wife very sorely. " 



248 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ried without her knowledge and lost her favor by it for a 
time; and in some other instances she punished cruelly 
persons who had presumed to marry before getting her 
leave. She was extravagantly fond of dress, partly, per- 
haps, because she had thought it more prudent to curb 
this taste in her youth. We read that when the ladies 
in Edward VI. ; s time went to meet Mary of Guise with 
their hair "frounsed, curled, and double -curled," she 
altered nothing, but "kept her old shamefastness." 
So she made up for this when she could do as she 
pleased. Just after her death one of her friends wrote,. 
"She made no will, neither gave anything away, so that 
they which shall come after her shall find a well-furnished 
jewel-case and a rich wardrobe of more than two thou- 
sand gowns, with all things answerable." Her extreme 
parsimony, which prevented her giving away the ward- 
robe full of rich dresses which she could not use, did not 
keep her from constantly adding to this immense stock. 
And, indeed, it has been observed since the days of 
Queen Elizabeth, that persons who spend lavishly on 
themselves are often the most penurious when it comes 
to spending for others. 

Yet after all, notwithstanding her faults and follies, 
Elizabeth was a great queen; perhaps the greatest in 
authentic history. 




SIXTEENTH CENTURY SUMMARY. 249 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

1 6TH CENTURY SUMMARY. JAMES I. 

HAT had the sixteenth century accomplished 
for England? For one thing, it was more 
humane at its close than at its beginning. We 
no longer read of three hundred heads at a time exposed 
on London Bridge, as was seen by a German traveller in 
Queen Elizabeth's time. Never again were a hundred 
thieves condemned to the gallows at once in a single 
county. The care of the poor had now become part 
of the public business. "Sturdy beggars" were punished 
as before, but the old and the helpless were provided 
for by requiring the well-to-do to give for their support. 
The struggle went on between the kingly prerogative, 
or privilege, and the growing sense of the rights of the 
people as represented by the House of Commons. Lit- 
tle by little the Tudors had to give way, though we find 
Elizabeth trying, almost to the end of her life, to control 
the utterances of Parliament. The habit of respect for 
royalty was so strong that it required a bold man to 
bring forward a bill on any topic which the queen had 
forbidden to be touched; and when one attempted it, 
he was very likely to land in prison. 

The feeling of old-fashioned loyalty was weakening, 
year by year. The poor man who, when Elizabeth had 
ordered his right hand to be struck off for some trivial 
offence, waved his hat over his head with the left and 
shouted "God save the queen!" was a type of the class 
that has never appeared since the Tudors ceased to 



250 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

reign. The gilding was rubbing off from the statues of 
kings, and men saw that after all they were but clay. 

Domestic comfort had advanced somewhat since Henry 
VII.'s time, though most of it would have appeared 
"cold comfort" to us. "Hang out your lights!" was 
still shouted by the watch at nightfall, for there were no 
street lamps. Almost everybody had chimneys, though 
not, perhaps, the very poor, as these additions were still 
considered a luxury. When the queen went in to her 
dancing-hall, the passage thither was covered with hay, 
"as was the custom of the court," an observer tells us. 
We still admire the Elizabethan style of architecture 
though we modify it internally for the sake of conven- 
ience. Gray names some of its features with good- 
humored satire when he writes of Sir Christopher Hat- 
ton's house as having 

" Rich windows that exclude the light, 

And passages that lead to nothing." 

Another very wealthy man, Sir William Hollis, spent 
his money in boundless hospitality. For the three win- 
ter months his house was open, and any man might 
come and stay three days without declaring his name. 
Sir William would never dine until one o'clock (common 
people dined at eleven, and very great ones at twelve), 
because, he said, a friend might come twenty miles to 
dine with him, and he " would be loth he should lose 
his labor." 

The young gentlemen of the time liked to travel occa- 
sionally (nobody ever thought of a young lady's travel- 
ling !), and when one came to Lord Burleigh for a license, 
to do so, he would first question him about England; 
"and if he found him ignorant, would bid him stay at 



SIXTEENTH CENTURY SUMMARY. 251 

home and know his own country first"; an admirable test 
of one's fitness for travelling. 

A new impulse was given to commerce by the charter 
granted by Queen Elizabeth to the East India Company 
{Dec. 31, 1599). It was at first only a trading company, 
but we shall see it develop into a vast empire. 

In manufactures, great progress was made during the 
century, and England exported large quantities of cloth 
to the continent. A pair of knit silk stockings was pre- 
sented to Queen Elizabeth which pleased her so much 
that she never afterward wore cloth ones. Pins were 
also invented, ladies having previously used clasps or 
skewers. Great sums were expended on rich clothing, 
and writers complain that in this respect the poor aped 
the manners of the rich. Cottagers' daughters " are so 
impudent, that albeit their parents have but one cow, 
horse or sheep, they will never let them rest till it be 
sold, to maintain them in their braveries." Queen 
Elizabeth did not object to having such things said 
.about the poor, but when the Bishop of London preached 
before her on the vanity of decking the body too finely, 
■she told her ladies that if the bishop held more discourse 
on such matters she would fit him for heaven, but he 
should walk thither without a staff, and leave his mantle 
behind him.* In other words, he should lose his bishopric. 

One practice in the reign of Elizabeth which we should 
be ashamed to think of as possible, was the unblushing 
begging of rich people for things that would make them 
richer. The queen had many such things in her gift; 
sinecures (offices with salaries but no duties), monopo- 
lies, forfeited estates, benefits of all sorts for which there 

* In allusion to his pastoral dress. 



252* HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

was an endless stretching out of open hands. She said 
once to Sir Walter Raleigh : 

"When, Sir Walter, will you cease to be a beggar?" 

"When your gracious majesty ceases to be a bene- 
factor," replied the ready courtier. 

The great writers of Queen Elizabeth's reign need a 
book to themselves. Stiakspeare, Ben Jonson, and Mar- 
lowe were among its dramatists; Spenser and Sidney 
among its poets; Hooker and Bacon among its prose- 
writers. Thomas Sackville, afterward Lord Buckhurst, 
but best known as the author of "The Mirror for Magis- 
trates" and "Gorboduc" (the first English tragedy), was 
among her most trusted councillors. Roger Ascham,* 
one of the most learned men in England, was Queen 
Elizabeth's tutor. His fine treatise on education was 
published in her reign. The queen had some literary 
aspirations and wrote one very poor sonnet; but her 
most important writings were her business letters, where 
she often breaks out into metaphors and is very fond 
of proverbs. In writing to an ambassador, instead of 
telling him to burn her letter as soon as he has read 
it, she says, "Let this memorial be only committed to> 
Vulcan's base keeping, without any larger abode than 
the reading thereof, yea, and with no mention made 
thereof to any other wight. * * * Seem not fo 
have had but secretary's letter from me." This is Queen 
Elizabeth, to the life. It is evident that the ambassador 
did not obey her injunction on the first point, whatever 
he may have done as to the others. 

James I. lost no time in setting out for London when 
the queen's death was reported to him. He was acknowl- 

* Pronounced As'kam. 



JAMES I. 253 

edged king without opposition, chiefly through the efforts 
of Sir Robert Cecil, whom he retained as prime minister 
and created Earl of Salisbury. On his way from Edin- 
burgh he bestowed the honor of knighthood upon two 
hundred and thirty-seven gentlemen who were presented 
to him, thus bringing the time -honored institution into 
derision. James was, in fact, so contemptible a person 
in all ways that affected the honor and welfare of his 
people, that the English nation soon became disgusted 
with him, and his reign was one long struggle between 
their sense of right and his determination to have his 
own way. He was most unkingly in his looks and man- 
ners. He had goggle eyes and weak legs, and a habit of 
nolding his mouth open so that people could see his 
tongue while he was talking. As he talked a great deal 
and said many foolish things, his failings were very con- 
spicuous. He had an immense amount of book-learning, 
but very little practical common sense, as was shown by 
his announcing that kings ruled by divine right, and that 
whatever privileges the subject possessed were due to the 
condescension of the king. When a man sets out with 
such a stupid idea as this in an intelligent country like 
England, we may be sure that the people will make it 
very uncomfortable for him. 

James soon made himself so disagreeable by his vul- 
garity, his greed for money, and his insolence, that a con- 
spiracy was formed within the first year of his reign to 
dethrone him and place his cousin, Lady Arabella Stuart 
{daughter of Lord Darnley's brother) on the throne. This 
was discovered, and some of the actors in it were exe- 
cuted, while James pardoned others after they had laid 
their heads on the block. We should scarcely remember 



254 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

this plot but that Sir Walter Raleigh was accused of being 
concerned in it. There was not evidence enough to con- 
vict him, yet he was sentenced to death and left in the 
Tower for twelve years — a singular way of administering 
justice. Sir Edward Coke, the attorney -general, was a 
bitter enemy of Raleigh, and behaved on the trial with a 
brutality that has made his name infamous. In the same 
year (1604) James made peace with Spain, thus ending 
the long war between the two countries. He also was 
proclaimed king of "Great Britain, France, and Ireland," 
though properly there was no sovereign of "Great Britain" 
until after the union with Scotland (1707). The absurd 
use of the title "King of France" was kept up for two 
hundred years longer, not being dropped until the nine- 
teenth century. 

The year 1605 is memorable as that of the gunpowder 
plot. The Roman Catholics had expected great favors 
from James I. (who was so bitterly opposed to Puritan- 
ism that they thought he would naturally go to the oppo- 
site extreme) but on finding that the severe laws against 
themselves were re-enacted by James's first Parliament, 
a few persons formed a plan for getting rid of the king 
and the Parliament together. They hired a building 
adjoining the Houses, and, from the cellar of this, dug 
with incredible labor a passage through a wall nine feet 
thick into the vault under the Parliament Chamber. In 
this vault they stored thirty-six barrels of gunpowder,, 
which they covered with fagots, so that the whole looked 
like a great wood-pile. Parliament was to be opened on 
the 5th of November;* and on the previous day, Lord 

* "Remember, remember the Fifth of November, 
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot. " — Old song. 



JAMES I. 255 

Monteagle, a Roman Catholic peer, received a mysteri- 
ous letter warning him to keep away from the session on 
that day, "for though there would be no appearance of 
any stir, yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow this 
Parliament, but shall not see who hurts them." Lord 
Monteagle instantly gave warning to the authorities; and 
they, judging from the words used that an explosion must 
be meant, sent to examine the vaults. There they found 
a tall, dark man with slow matches and touchwood in his 
pocket, just coming out of the door, and in the cellar a 
dark-lantern with a lighted candle in it. The man turned 
out to be Guido Fawkes (commonly called by the Eng- 
lish name, Guy) who gave a false name, but was made to 
tell his real one by cruel torture. The plan had been to 
blow up the entire Parliament, Lords, and Commons, 
together with the king and his oldest son, Prince Henry, 
who would be present at the opening. They seemed to 
have very vague notions of what would come next, but 
expected, somehow or other, to have a new set of laws 
made which should favor the Catholics. The chief con- 
spirators, among whom were Sir Everard Digby and 
Robert Catesby, both belonging to families of distinc- 
tion, were executed. Most of the Catholics in England 
looked with horror on the plot, and several of them, like 
Lord Monteagle, gave their help in unearthing it. 

In 1607, an event occurred which seemed of very little 
importance to the English world of that time, but which 
is a notable fact in our own history; the first permanent 
English settlement was made in America, at Jamestown 
(so called in compliment to King James I.), by Captain 
John Smith and his companions. The king gave the 
colonists a charter which allowed them to make their 



256 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

own laws, under a governor appointed by himself. From 
this time we date English rule in America. 

Now began the long struggle between King James and 
his Parliaments which forms the most striking feature of 
his reign. He called one together only when he needed 
money; the Parliament regularly demanded that he 
should reform some of the old abuses of the government, 
especially the Court of High Commission, and give up 
some ways of raising money which the Commons thought 
it high time to do away with. James was obstinate and 
they were firm, according to our way of looking at it; 
they voted him only about half as much as he needed to 
carry on the government, and reminded him that all tax- 
ation without consent of Parliament was null and void. 
Then he dissolved the Parliament and went on raising 
money illegally; but with all his efforts he could not get 
as much as was needed for his boundless extravagance. 
Court life was spent in costly pleasures, and his palaces 
were the scene of a continual round of balls, masques, 
and feastings, which the low tastes of James and his 
queen, Anne of Denmark, turned into drunken revels. 
He could not live without a "favorite"; some man who 
could entertain him, while the king would go about with 
his arm round the favorite's neck, "slobbering over him," 
as we are told, and kissing him in his disgusting fondness, 
calling him by pet names, and scandalizing all decent 
people by his behavior. The sums squandered on these 
degraded objects of his infatuation are beyond belief. 
On one occasion he gave his friend Carr an order on the 
treasury for ^20,000. Lord Salisbury (Robert Cecil) 
had the money counted out in silver and spread out in a 
room where the king was to meet him. "Whose is that 



JAMES I. 257 

money?" asked James. "It was yours until your Majesty 
gave it away," answered the minister. This "object 
lesson" had the desired effect. James swore that the 
favorite should have only a few hundreds of it, and kept 
the rest himself. The reform was not permanent, how- 
ever, and the grasping and the wasting went on as be- 
fore. Carr, who had been created Duke of Somerset by 
the king, wished to marry the wife of the Earl of Essex 
{son of Queen Elizabeth's favorite), who for this purpose 
obtained a divorce from her husband. This was opposed 
by Sir Thomas Overbury (one of James's courtiers), who 
tried vainly to prevent the marriage. Somerset and his 
wife caused Overbury to be poisoned, and were afterward 
sentenced to death for the crime. If they had been poor 
people they would have died on the gallows; but being 
"noble," James only banished them from his royal pres- 
ence and gave them an income of $20,000 a year. There 
is poetical justice in the fact that they were very unhappy, 
and hated each other cordially for the rest of their lives. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

THE BLOODY HAND. RALEIGH. TRANSLATION OF THE 

BIBLE. 




ING JAMES, like most extravagant persons, 
was always short of money; and an in- 
genious courtier suggested a way to replenish 
his finances* by creating a title of honor between the 
knights and the lowest order of nobility, the barons. 

* Pronounced finan-ces — accent on the second syllable. 
17 



258 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

These new dignitaries were to be called baronets. They 
would be addressed by the title " Sir," like knights, and 
their wives would be called "Lady;" the difference being 
that the title was hereditary. The king caught eagerly at 
the idea, and made as many baronets as could be found 
willing to purchase the privilege, each one being required 
to pay a thousand pounds to the king, besides fees tc* 
various officers. James wished to bestow the honor on 
two hundred gentlemen; about half that number availed 
themselves of the offer. A scheme of colonizing the prov- 
ince of Ulster, in Ireland, with English settlers, who- 
were to take possession of the land forfeited by rebels,, 
was the excuse for this device for raising money. The 
infant colony, it was said, needed a military guard to pro- 
tect it from its savage neighbors; but the money raised 
by the sale of baronetcies did not go to Ulster; it re- 
mained in the king's pocket. The arms of Ulster were 
a bloody hand, and this, being adopted for the new order,, 
has been the crest appropriated to baronets ever since. 
The death of Lord Salisbury ( 1 6 1 2) removed the prin- 
cipal check upon James's extravagance, and his govern- 
ment became even less respected than before. Henry, 
Prince of Wales, the king's oldest son, died soon after- 
ward from a fever. This young man was very fond of 
Sir Walter Raleigh, whom he often visited in the Tower; 
and it is reported that he said nobody but his father 
would keep such a bird in such a cage. James had now 
only two children left; Prince Charles, who afterward 
became King of England, and the Princess Elizabeth, 
married to the Elector Palatine, a German sovereign 
ruling over a territory nearly corresponding to the more 
recent Grand Duchy of Baden. It is through this prin- 



THE BLOODY HAND. RALEIGH. 259 

cess that the present royal family of England take their 
title to the throne. 

After the dismissal of Somerset, King James took up 
a new favorite, George Villiers, who was, like Carr, hand- 
some and agreeable, but had far more ability and daring. 
He spoke out his mind with great freedom, and soon ac- 
quired unbounded influence over his master. This made 
him hated by other courtiers, who could get nothing 
from the king without first securing the favor of Villiers, 
and distrusted by the Parliament. James advanced his 
favorite from one dignity to another until he made him 
Duke of Buckingham, thus securing for his benefit the 
title of one of the proudest families in England. 

All this time, Sir Walter Raleigh had been languishing 
in prison. It is said that his imprisonment was not severe 
and that his wife was allowed to be with him. He was 
very industrious, and not only wrote the "History of the 
World" during his confinement, but amused himself with 
experiments in chemistry, in which he was very skilful. 
Though he was now sixty- three years old, he was full of 
vigor and enthusiasm, and in an evil hour he persuaded 
the king to allow him to go to Guiana, in South America, 
where, he said, he knew of some gold mines. Gold al- 
ways opened a way to James's heart; he consented to 
release Raleigh, though without pardoning him, and sent 
him out on his quest. 

What was called Guiana in Raleigh's time included 
what we now call Venezuela, and it was somewhere on 
the Orinoco that Raleigh expected to find the mine. As # 
the country belonged to Spain, the English could have 
no right to enter it except peaceably, and Raleigh was 
warned that there must be no fighting. The expedition 



2G0 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

proved a failure; no gold mine was found, and Raleigh's 
son was killed in an encounter with the Spaniards. 

The Spanish minister in London, whose brother had 
been killed at St. Thomas (a Spanish fort taken and de- 
stroyed by one of Raleigh's captains while Sir Walter was 
ill on his own ship), now demanded the punishment of 
Raleigh for having attacked Spain in time of peace. The 
mean, cowardly James, wishing to marry his son to a 
Spanish princess, determined to sacrifice Raleigh; and 
instead of accusing him of his real offence, which was 
carrying out the king's wishes with too much zeal, he 
had the baseness to order the execution of the sentence 
passed against him fourteen years before. Raleigh met 
his death bravely and calmly, saying of the axe that was 
to behead him, "'Tis a sharp remedy, but it is a cure for 
all ills." No action of James's reign, though he commit- 
ted many disgraceful ones, has left so deep a stain upon 
his name as this (1618). 

In 1620, we come to another of those landmarks of 
time which stand out so distinctly in our sight — the sail- 
ing of the "Pilgrim Fathers" in the Mayflower. These 
emigrants belonged to that class of Puritans called 
"Brownists" from their founder, or "Separatists," because 
they wished to separate themselves entirely from the 
Church of England. Driven from their own country 
by persecution, they settled for awhile at Leyden, in 
Holland, and then, stopping for a short time in England, 
sailed from Plymouth, in Devonshire, to Plymouth, in 
Massachusetts Bay. 

Frederic V., the Elector Palatine, who had married 
James's daughter, Elizabeth, was at this time (1620) in 
trouble from having accepted an invitation from the Pro- 



THE BLOODY HAND. RALEIGH 261 

testants of Bohemia to become their king. He was de- 
feated by the legitimate claimant; and all Europe was 
looking on, expecting that James would send help to his 
son-in-law, whose cause was well understood to be the 
cause of Protestantism. The king's theories, however, 
did not permit that. According to them, the Catholic 
King of Bohemia was so by Divine right; therefore, his 
subjects must not try to get rid of him and take a Pro- 
testant in his place. This added to James's unpopu- 
larity in England, and he soon came to an open quarrel 
with the Commons. They became more out- spoken 
than ever, and when James told them that they had no 
rights except such as he chose to allow them, they an- 
swered with spirit that the rights and liberties of the peo- 
ple of England were quite independent of the king, and 
that they had, and ought to have, freedom "to propound, 
treat, reason, and bring to conclusion" whatever con- 
cerned the welfare of the country. This is exactly the 
spirit of the "Declaration of Rights" by our own Conti- 
nental Congress, and of all the other sturdy utterances 
which preceded and led up to our Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. James was furiously angry. He sent for the 
journal of the House of Commons, and tore out the re- 
cord of the offensive resolution. "I will govern accord- 
ing to the common weal," said he, "but not according to 
the common will." He dissolved the Parliament; but it 
was like shutting up a smouldering fire. It is checked 
for the moment; but sooner or later the flame will burst 
forth, and the ruin will follow all the more surely. 

One measure had been carried through by this Parlia- 
ment which we can not even now think of without pain. 
This was the impeachment, for bribery and corruption, 



262 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

of Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, Lord Chancellor 
of England; the "wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind/' 
as Pope calls him. It was not that he had been more 
corrupt than others, but that Parliament was determined 
to make an example, and unfortunately Bacon was open 
to some charges of this kind. The bribes he had taken 
had been few, but they were enough to convict him. 
This truly great man, occupying the highest position it 
was possible for a subject to hold in England, was de- 
graded from his office, sentenced to pay a fine of £4°,- 
000, and to be imprisoned during the king's pleasure. 
The latter punishment was remitted by James, but the 
far greater one, the loss of his good name, could not be 
spared him. He lived five years longer, a retired life, 
devoted to study and scientific pursuits, happier, per- 
haps, than he had been in the feverish struggle for wealth. 
His extravagance had undone him. 

Disappointed in getting money from Parliament, James 
now began intriguing with Spain for the marriage of his 
son, Prince Charles, to the Infanta (princess) of that 
country — a measure which he knew to be most distaste- 
ful to his subjects. "I must have money," said this 
worthy king, "and if my people won't give it to me, I 
must get it from Spain in the shape of a dowry." After 
some negotiation with the Spanish court, the prince, or, as 
his father delighted to call him, Baby Charles, set off for 
Spain with Buckingham, whom the king nicknamed 
"Steenie,"* and they travelled there in disguise under 
the names of John and Thomas Smith. As their coming 
had not been announced, much surprise was felt in Spain 

* Sir Walter Scott's novel, " The Fortunes of Nigel, " treats of 
life in England under James I. 



THE BLOODY HAND. RALEIGH 263 

at so un-royal a proceeding; but they were politely re- 
ceived, and Prince Charles was allowed to see the 
Infanta. The negotiations came to nothing, and the 
visitors went back to England very much displeased. 
Buckingham, who had behaved at the Spanish court with 
such insolent familiarity as to disgust every one who saw 
him, pretended, on his return, that he had prevented the 
match, and Prince Charles, the most untruthful of men, 
•supported him in this statement. James was inconsol- 
able at the loss of two millions of gold crowns, which he 
was to have had with the Infanta, but the Commons, 
thankful to get rid of the marriage at any price, immedi- 
ately voted him a large sum of money, and all seemed 
to be prospering when the king was attacked by an ague, 
and died after a few days' illness. He was in the fifty- 
ninth year of his age, and had reigned twenty-two years 
in England. 

It is hard to be just to James the First. His personal 
qualities were so disagreeable and many of his notions 
so foolish that they obscure his better qualities. He had 
not the rough strength of the Plantagenets nor the 
dignity of the Tudors. He was personally a coward, and 
wore a thickly padded coat for fear some one should 
stab him; at the same time he was slovenly in his habits 
and an habitual profane swearer. In government, he 
seemed to lack all sense of responsibility, his vanity 
making him believe that it was enough for him to will a 
thing to make that the only thing possible to be done. 
His friends called him the British Solomon ; Henry IV. 
of France said he was "the wisest fool in Europe." 
Among other efforts to interfere with people's personal 
rights was his trying to prevent the use of tobacco, which 



264 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

had by this time grown into great favor. James was very- 
fond of writing books, and in his "Counterblast to To- 
bacco" describes the use of that weed as being a custom 
"loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to 
the brain, and injurious to the lungs." King James's own 
contributions to learning are now merely matters of 
curiosity; the great addition to the stock of the world's 
literature in his reign was the translation of the Bible 
made by his order and published in 1611. This is the 
"Authorized Version" — the one now in common use. 
Forty-seven learned men were employed on it for four 
years, and by its means our English language has been 
fixed in its present form. 

Many famous dramatists and poets lived in James I.'s 
reign, some of them belonging also partly to Elizabeth's. 
Shakspeare did not die until 16 16; Bacon and Raleigh 
come in both centuries. Names of lesser note must be 
learned in connection with English literature. Among 
men of science perhaps next to Bacon, stands Dr. Harvey,, 
discoverer of the circulation of the blood. It is said 
that he lost practice by putting forth so absurd an idea. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

CHARLES I. "THE THOROUGH." THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 

OON after his accession, Charles I. brought 
home his bride, Henrietta Maria, the daughter 
of Henry IV. of France and sister of Louis 
XIII. She was only sixteen, and brought in her train a 
great company of French courtiers, and twenty- nine 




CHARLES I. THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 265 

priests, so that the English were at once prejudiced 
against her. 

Charles was now twenty-five years old (1625). A 
Parliament was promptly summoned, for James had left 
the country without money and in debt. The first de- 
mand of the Commons was for a redress of grievances; 
they demanded stricter laws in regard to religion, and 
wished to know for what purpose the king was going to 
use the money he asked for. Haughtily declining to 
answer this, he disolved the Parliament (1625), and pro- 
ceeded to levy taxes on his own authority, in defiance of 
the laws. Buckingham undertook an expedition for the 
relief of the Huguenots in La Rochelle,* but it was a 
complete failure, with no result but an immense increase 
of debt ^1627). The Commons sent a "Remonstrance" 
to the king, in which they complained that the conduct 
of the war had "extremely wasted that stock of honor 
that was left unto this kingdom, sometime terrible to all 
other nations, now declining in contempt beneath the 
meanest." As they further demanded the dismissal of 
the Duke of Buckingham, the second Parliament was dis- 
missed like the first (1626). A second expedition was 
about to sail for France in aid of the Huguenots; Buck- 
ingham, in spite of his evident incapacity, being again 
put in command, when he was assassinated by John Fel- 
ton, a lieutenant in the navy who was angry at being 
refused promotion. The king wept; the people shouted 
for joy. The Earl of Lindsey took Buckingham's place, 
made another failure, and the starving garrison of La 
Rochelle surrendered to the Catholics. 

One more Parliament (whom Charles, on dismissing 

* See "A Short History of France," p. 214. 



H6Q HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

them, called "a set of vipers") closes the first period of 
his reign. It presented to the king the famous "Petition 
of Right," a sort of re-statement of the Magna Charta, 
which he was forced to sign. He ventured on an im- 
prudent exercise of his prerogative by committing to the 
Tower several members who opposed his wishes. Some 
of them were released on bail, but Sir John Eliot, refus- 
ing to make any submission, was kept in prison until he 
died, three years later, of a disease brought on by his 
close confinement He is often called the first martyr in 
the cause of English liberty. 

Among the "grievances" of which redress was demand- 
ed were two illegal courts; the Star- Chamber, which 
dealt with political offenders, and the Court of High 
Commission (dating from Elizabeth's day) which judged 
ecclesiastical cases. The Star- Chamber had long been 
in existence, but had never until now been so scandal- 
ously misused. Men who were brought before these 
courts were condemned to punishments far beyond any 
which would have been inflicted in an ordinary court of 
justice. Crushing fines, whipping, branding, slicing off 
of ears in the pillory, and slitting of noses, besides in- 
definite imprisonment, were among the sentences passed 
on persons who spoke or wrote anything against the 
king's majesty or against the established church; and 
there was no redress. 

For eleven years (i 629-1 640), Charles ruled without 
a Parliament, and by means which the Petition of Right, 
signed by himself, had declared to be illegal. His chosen 
ministers during this time were Thomas Wentworth, who 
had begun his career as an ardent friend of liberty, and 
Dr. William Laud, lately made Archbishop of Canter- 



CHARLES I. THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 267 

bury. These two men concerted with Charles a system 
which they called "The Thorough," and which, when 
■carried out, was intended to reduce every man in the 
kingdom, body and soul, into complete subjection. 
Wentworth forgot all about the people's liberties after he 
became chief minister of the king, and Laud had but one 
wish, that of establishing the English liturgy, by force if 
need be, throughout the length and breadth of the land. 
Being in need of money, Charles now proceeded to 
levy tonnage and poundage* on his own authority, and 
also demanded ship-money — a tax for the equipment of 
a navy — from the whole kingdom. In addition to these 
foe granted monopolies (of course in return for large pay- 
ments of money) though the Parliament had made all 
monopolies illegal and had forever abolished them.t 
John Hampden, a gentleman from Buckinghamshire, 
refused to pay the ship-money, and brought the matter 
before the law-courts. His share was only twenty shil- 
lings, equal to $5, and he spent at least a hundred times 
as much in defending the case, which was decided against 
him; but his resistance awakened people to a sense of 
their danger. The attacks on their pockets, however, 
did not press so heavily on the English as the attacks on 
their religion. James I. had issued a "Book of Sports" 
which specified certain games as lawful to be played on 
■Sunday. Charles's Parliaments, being strongly Puritan 

* Duties on articles imported from foreign countries. 

+ Speaking of the monopolists, who made their own prices for the 
•most necessary commodities, like soap and salt, a member of Parlia- 
ment said, " They sup in our cup, they dip in our dish, they sit by 
our fire; we find them in the dye-vat, the wash-bowls and the pow- 
•dering-tub. They have marked and sealed us from head to foot. " 



268 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

in sentiment, had forbidden Sunday pastimes. The king 
now issued a proclamation authorizing such sports, which 
he required every minister to read aloud from his pulpit. 
One of them did so, and at the close of the reading said,. 
"You have now heard the commandment of God and the 
commandment of man; obey which you please." Most 
of the Puritan clergymen refused to comply, and were 
turned out of their parishes by the Court of High Com- 
mission. Many of them took refuge in New England, 
where they could worship God according to their own 
consciences. England's loss was America's gain. 

At the same period with the Puritan exodus, a different 
class of religious believers were finding a home on our 
shores. Lord Baltimore, a high-minded Roman Catholic, 
wishing to provide a refuge for the persecuted people of 
his own belief, obtained from Charles (1632) a grant of 
lands on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, where a thriving 
colony was established which was named Maryland, after 
Charles's queen, Henriette Marie. Lord Baltimore was 
the first to give to the world the noble spectacle of a, 
colony founded on complete religious toleration. 

In Scotland, Laud's attempts to enforce Episcopacy- 
were not so successful as in England. He prepared a. 
liturgy for the Scottish Church, modeled on that of Eng- 
land, and a day was appointed for its first use. A large 
congregation was assembled in the cathedral of St. Giles, 
in Edinburgh, and the dean began to read the service. 
Instantly cries of "A Pope! A Pope! Antichrist!" filled 
the air, and an enraged woman named Jenny Geddes 
flung a stool at the dean's head. The uproar was. so- 
great that the meeting broke up in confusion. A cove- 
nant was drawn up, signed by great numbers of the 



CHARLES L THE LONG PARLLAMENT. 269 

Scots, binding themselves to resist all efforts to interfere 
with their religion. Charles offered some concessions, 
but, as usual, was too late, and only succeeded in show- 
ing his weakness. The next year (1638), in a general 
assembly which met at Glasgow, Episcopacy, the Court 
of High Commission in Scotland, and the Liturgy were 
all abolished at a single stroke, every one being required 
to sign the covenant or be turned out of the church.* 

So matters wore along until the year 1640, when 
Charles, having exhausted his resources, t was obliged to 
summon a Parliament, after an interval of eleven years. 
He made his demand at once for supplies, but the tire- 
some Commons declined to consider that question until 
they had talked over their "grievances." They dis- 
cussed illegal imprisonments, ship-money, tonnage and 
poundage, and various other things; and there is no 
knowing to what length their perversity would have car- 
ried them, if the king had not tried his old remedy and 
dissolved the Parliament after a session of three weeks. 

It was a foolish thing to do, and Charles knew this as 
soon as he had done it. The ill-feeling against his two 
ministers was increasing every day. Laud was consid- 
ered no better than a papist. In his zeal, he had restored 
many of those forms and practices of the Romish Church 
which were most abhorrent to the Puritans. Crucifixes, 
vestments, genuflexions, all that belonged to an elab- 
orate ritual, % were things without which, in his mind, re- 

* See Sir Walter Scott's novel, "A Legend of Montrose" for ref- 
erences to the condition of Scotland at this time. 

+ Pronounced resour'ces; accent on the second syllable. 

X In regard to Scotland he remarked, ' ' They have no religion 
there, that I can see ! " 



270 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ligion could not be; and he went so far that the pope 
had privately offered to make him a cardinal if he wished 
to become reconciled to the Church of Rome. But he 
had no such wish ; he simply desired to establish the 
ritual of the Church of England as he thought it ought 
to be, and then force every man, woman, and child in 
the British dominions to conform to it. Wentworth, now 
created Earl of Strafford, was a tyrant at heart; and all 
the authors of "The Thorough" were riding post-haste 
to their own destruction. 

On November 3d, 1640, Charles called together his 
last Parliament. As it sat for thirteen years, it is called 
in history, " The Long Parliament." Its first business 
was to send for the poor wretches who were still pining 
under sentences from the Star- Chamber and the Court 
of High Commission. Dr. Leighton, a clergyman of 
the Church of Scotland, who had dared to write against 
prelacy, and who had now passed ten years of his life- 
sentence in prison, was brought to London. He had 
been whipped, pilloried, had his ears cut off and each 
side of his nose slit, and was branded on each cheek. 
Mutilated, deaf, and blind, he was set at liberty, and re- 
ceived some compensation in money. William Prynne, sl 
zealous Puritan writer, had put forth a book against the 
stage, and as Queen Henrietta Maria was very fond of 
the theatre, this book was taken as an insult to her. He 
too had lost his ears and was serving a life-sentence in 
prison when a decree of Parliament released him. The- 
Commons then condemned, under the name of "Delin- 
quents," all who had been in any way employed in car- 
rying out illegal acts, and Laud and Strafford were thrown 
into the Tower on the charge of treason. Before their 



CHARLES I. THE LONG PARLLAMENT. 271 

trial came on, Parliament passed a law to abolish all 
images, altars, and crucifixes, in consequence of which 
Edward L's beautiful Charing Cross was torn down, 
and also the gilded one in Cheapside. The order 
was carried out so ruthlessly that many things were 
destroyed beside the crosses, and we miss much lovely 
stained glass and exquisite carving, the fruit of years 
of labor on the part of those who thought they were 
serving God. 

While this was going on, Strafford's case was taken up. 
As there was some difficulty in proving the charges 
against him, the impeachment was changed to a bill of 
attainder, where the charge does not need to be proved, 
but is passed, like any other law, by the Lords and Com- 
mons, the king giving his consent. Pym, the leading 
orator of the House of Commons, brought forward the 
charge against Strafford, who defended himself with great 
ability, but was condemned, as had been intended from 
the beginning. Strafford wrote a letter to the king, gen- 
erously bidding him consent to his death, if by so doing 
he could make matters easier for himself; and Charles, 
always weak where he should have been firm, and ob- 
stinate where he should have yielded, basely gave his 
assent to the execution. 

Strafford had not expected that the king would take 
him at his word, and exclaimed bitterly, " Put not your 
trust in princes !" but he met his fate with dignity and 
composure. An eye-witness says that he walked to the 
scaffold with the step and manner of a general marching 
at the head of an army, rather than the demeanor of a 
condemned criminal. As he passed the window of the 
room where Laud was confined, he knelt down and asked 



272 ■ HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

his blessing. The archbishop was kept four years in 
prison before he followed his friend to the block. 

On the same day with the order for Strafford's execu- 
tion, the king signed the most important bill of the ses- 
sion; namely, one stating that Parliament should not from 
that time forth be dissolved nor adjourned without its 
own consent, and that the king was bound to call it 
together at least once in three years. The Star- Cham- 
ber and the Court of High Commission were abolished; 
and the Houses, feeling that they had done enough for 
one session, adjourned. 

A frightful rebellion now broke out in Ireland, where 
the natives were joined by the ''English of the Pale,"* 
and excesses committed too horrible to tell. The king 
was accused of encouraging this rebellion in order that 
he might raise money to quell it, and though this seems 
impossible to believe, Charles's faithlessness and insin- 
cerity were so well known that the Commons paid no 
attention to his denial. They framed a " Remonstrance," 
setting forth his illegal measures and his various acts of 
tyranny, and brought out the fact that unless some means 
could be devised for putting an end to them, their liberty 
would be a thing of the past. There was a tremendous 
opposition to the measure. For twelve hours the debate 
lasted, and, for the first time in the history of Parliament, 
lights were brought in while it was in session. Mem- 
bers on both sides drew their swords, and only the good 
management of Hampden kept the peace. At midnight 

* "The Pale" was a district in the eastern part of Ireland which 
had been occupied by English settlers for hundreds of years. The 
inhabitants were Catholics, and were more in sympathy with the 
Irish than with their English masters. 



CIVIL WAR. MARS TON MOOR. NASEBY. 273 

the Remonstrance was passed by a small majority, and 
the next day copies of it were sent all over England. 




CHAPTER XXXIV. 

CIVIL WAR. MARSTON MOOR. NASEBY. 

ARLIAMENT was now divided into two dis- 
tinct parties, one for and one against the king. 
If he could even then have followed a straight- 
forward course, and given up his idea of "divine right/' 
all might have gone smoothly again; but such a course 
was impossible to him. His one idea was to be able to 
rule without interference, and he seemed to learn nothing 
from experience. 

While public feeling was in an excited and irritable 
state, the king ventured on a step which threw all his 
previous indiscretions into the shade. Accusing of high- 
treason five members of the House of Commons, includ- 
ing Hampden and Pym, and one of the Upper House, 
Lord Kimbolton, he sent a sergeant-at-arms to the Com- 
mons, demanding that the five members should be de- 
livered into his custody. The members were in their 
seats, but remained silent when called upon, and the 
speaker ordered the officer to withdraw. The next day 
the king came himself and demanded the five members, 
who had, by direction of the House, absented themselves. 
Charles asked where they were. The speaker, Lenthall, 
fell on his knees, saying that he had no eyes to see nor 
tongue to speak but as the House commanded him. 
"Well," said the king good-humoredly, looking round the 
18 



274 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

House, "I see the birds are flown, but I expect you to 
send them to me as soon as they return." As he passed 
out he heard cries of "Privilege ! Privilege !" which meant 
that he was infringing upon the rights of the members. 
On cooler reflection, Charles felt that he had gone too* 
far. He made an apology to the House and withdrew 
his charges against the members, but he could not calm, 
the excitement he had raised. 

The Commons seized the magazine at Hull, and took, 
possession of the Tower of London. They also passed 
a bill assuming entire control of the militia. This the 
king refused to sign, and both sides prepared for war. 

The enthusiasm for the Parliament, among its sup- 
porters, was unbounded. Money poured in for the rais- 
ing of troops. Immense quantities of plate were sent to 
be melted up, and so many small articles of personal use 
were contributed that it was called in derision "the 
thimble and bodkin war." The queen raised some 
money in Holland by selling her jewels, and the Royal- 
ists were not behindhand in making sacrifices. All felt 
that the country was preparing for a momentous struggle. 

The difference between the two parties now grew 
more marked than ever. Those on the king's side took 
the name of Cavaliers, while those belonging to the 
Parliament were called Roundheads, because they gener- 
ally wore their hair cropped close. Most of trie nobility 
were royalists, though the Earl of Essex (son of Eliza- 
beth's favorite) was made general of the Parliamentary 
forces. Having collected as many men as he could, 
Charles set up his royal standard at Nottingham (1642). 

Prince Rupert (son of Charles's sister and the Elector 
Palatine) began the war by routing a small body of Par- 



CIVIL WAR. MARS TON MOOR. NASEBY. 215 

liamentary cavalry at Worcester. The first general battle 
was an indecisive one at Edgehill, where the Earl of 
Lindsey, the royal general, was mortally wounded. In 
a battle at Chalgrove Field (1643), otherwise unim- 
portant, the Parliamentary party lost the great patriot 
Hampden, who was deeply regretted by both sides. His 
moderation and tact were invaluable in such a struggle; 
and, had he lived, might have changed the issue of the 
war.* On the king's side a loss almost equally great 
was that of Lord Falkland, who was killed at Newbury. 
Several other battles were fought this year, gained 
mostly by the Royalists, who were far superior to their 
opponents in military experience and training. The 
Parliamentary army, as yet, was made up largely of the 
enthusiastic but untrained rabble, and had little of that 
material which afterward made them invincible. By the 
efforts of Sir Henry Vane (the younger) an alliance was 
entered into with the Scots, by which their "Solemn 
League and Covenant" to fight to the death against 
popery, prelacy (by which they meant the Church of 
England), superstition, and profanity, was made equally 
binding on the English. The House of Commons in 
England swore to observe this agreement, and the name 
"Covenanter" became a party watch- word, binding the 
subscribers to one another as with bonds of steel. 

All this time there had been serving in the Parliamen- 
tary army a man who, though as yet undistinguished, was 
destined to play a more important part in England than 
any other man has ever filled there. This was Oliver 

* A locket was found on Hampden's body, inscribed : 
"Not against the King I fight, 
Butyfrr the King and country's right." 



276 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Cromwell, a plain country gentleman, who had begun his 
public life in the Parliament of 1628. His rustic air and 
ill-fitting clothes caused some of the members to look on 
him with contempt, and one of them asked Hampden, 
"Who is that sloven?" Hampden told him, adding, "If 
we should ever come to a breach with the king, that 
sloven will be the greatest man in England." Cromwell 
was Hampden's cousin, and the two men had formed a 
plan of settling in America. It is said that they had 
actually embarked, but were forced back by an order of 
council. Cromwell was a man of an intensely religious 
spirit and a wonderful power of influencing other men. 
He soon gained such an ascendency over the solid men 
of his own party that great numbers of them entered the 
army, giving it a character of dignity which it had here- 
tofore lacked. Cromwell had entered it as a colonel of 
cavalry, and had drilled his regiment until his men re- 
ceived and deserved their name of "Ironsides." These 
Ironsides were all "men of religion." If they were not 
so before, they caught the spirit of their surroundings and 
became as ardent in devotion as they had before been in 
dissipation. "They are a lovely company," Cromwell 
says. "Not a man swears but he pays his twelve pence." 
No drunkenness was allowed, nor any of the other vices 
to which soldiers are addicted; their recreation consisted 
in listening to a godly discourse, and when they fought, 
they felt that "the Spirit of the Lord was upon them." 
If any man proved himself unworthy of belonging to 
such a body, or was not amenable to discipline, he was 
dismissed at once. "A few honest men are better than 
numbers," said Cromwell. In the same letter he writes, 
"I had rather have a plain russet- coated captain that 



CIVIL WAR. MARSTON MOOR. NASEBY. 277 

knows what he fights for and loves what he knows, than 
that which you call 'a gentleman' and is nothing else. I 
honor a gentleman that is so indeed I" 

Charles was daily losing ground. Prince Rupert, a 
brave but rash young soldier, insisted upon giving battle 
to the enemy at Marston Moor, contrary to the advice cf 
the Marquis of Newcastle, his superior in command. 
Here the royal army was completely routed, chiefly by 
means of Cromwell and his Ironsides. "God made them 
as stubble to our swords," he wrote to a friend the same 
evening. Newcastle, in disgust, abandoned the king's 
cause and left the country. 

On the other hand, the divisions in the Parliamentary 
party itself had now become fatal to any unity of action. 
At first, those who differed from the Established Church 
were mostly Presbyterians, but the sect called Independ- 
ents, to which Cromwell belonged, was rapidly advancing 
in power and influence. A part of them wished to abolish 
both monarchy and aristocracy, from which they took the 
name of "Root-and-Branch" men. Cromwell, wishing 
to get rid of certain influential members of Parliament, 
induced it to pass a so-called "Self-denying Ordinance," 
making it impossible to hold a seat in Parliament and a 
position in the army at the same time. Acting upon this, 
many of the members resigned their commands in the 
army, though an exception was made in Cromwell's favor. 

He now set himself about raising the whole army to 
the standard of his own Ironsides. What he called "The 
New Model" was introduced into it, maintained by a 
rigorous discipline and inspired by a religious zeal and 
fervor never equalled in history. Each officer was a 
chaplain; the soldiers spent their spare hours in prayer 



278 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and in the study of the Scriptures, and in their talks to- 
gether discussed the state of their souls and encouraged 
one another to greater zeal. They marched to battle 
singing hymns to the accompaniment of military bands. 

The greatest battle of the war was fought at Naseby, 
where the king commanded in person (June, 1645) an d 
was defeated by Cromwell. During all this time efforts 
were made to treat with Charles, but his habitual dupli- 
city made any arrangement impossible. At Naseby his 
cabinet was taken, where letters were found more dam- 
aging than the loss of a battle. He was discovered to 
have been asking for soldiers from abroad, in spite of his 
most solemn assurances to the contrary; his statements 
to the queen were exactly opposite to those he made to 
his enemies, and he boasted of how well he had been 
able to deceive the Parliament, and how he would crush 
out all opposition when the power was in his own hands 
again. At length, hopeless of making terms with them, 
he fled to Newark and put himself under the protection 
of the Scots, who were encamped at that place. They 
required him to sign orders to give up to them all the 
castles still occupied by his troops, and after a short in- 
terval they made an agreement with the English Parlia- 
ment to deliver him into their hands, on payment of a 
sum of money due to them for the expenses of the war. 
The Scots tried to take away from this transaction the 
appearance of a sale, but the verdict of history is against 
them, and as a sale it will be handed down to posterity. 

"I am sold and bought," said the king, when the two 
hundred cases of silver which sealed the bargain made 
their appearance in the Scottish camp. 

By this time the most bitter feeling had arisen between 



CIVIL WAR. MARS TON MOOR. NASEBY. 279 

the Parliament and the army — in other words, between 
the Presbyterians and the Independents. Their hatred 
of each other was quite as great as that which each felt 
toward the "Malignants," by which name Cromwell's 
party called all Royalists who had taken part in the war. 
The Parliament had the king in charge; the army wanted 
him; and one Cornet Joyce appeared suddenly before 
him at Holmby House with a band of troopers at his 
back, and told Charles he must go with him. "Where 
is your warrant?" asked the king. "There!" said Joyce, 
pointing down into the court -yard, where four hundred 
soldiers were drawn up. "It is written in very legible 
characters," answered the king, and made no resistance. 
The Parliament threatened violence when they found 
they had been outwitted, but Cromwell marched his 
whole army through London, and things quieted down 
directly. The king was now removed to Hampton Court 
Palace, where he enjoyed much freedom, but fearing that 
harm was intended him, he fled secretly to the Isle of 
Wight, where he was kindly received by the governor, 
and lodged in Carisbrook Castle. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

PRIDE'S PURGE. EXECUTION OF CHARLES I. DUNBAR 
AND WORCESTER. 

HE Parliament made one more effort to treat 
with Charles, and offered terms which seemed 
impossible for him to reject; but being then 
engaged in secret negotiations with the Scots he refused 




280 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

these, and lost his last chance. They then voted that no 
further address should be made to him. After a short 
sojourn in Newport (Isle of Wight) during which still 
more evidences of his duplicity were discovered, he was 
removed to Hurst Castle, a gloomy fortress on the Sussex 
coast, where he anticipated the fate of Edward II. at 
Berkeley and Richard II. at Pontefract. But assassina- 
tion had gone out of date in England; and when he 
hinted his fears to his guards they told him that whatever 
the Parliament did would be "very public, and in a way 
of justice to which the world should be witness." It is a 
curious proof of the strength of loyal feeling even as late 
as this, that while Cromwell was away fighting the Scots, 
who were in arms for the king, Parliament reconsidered 
its former vote and decided to send further propositions 
to him. The army, however, interfered, and a council of 
officers sent Col. Pride (formerly a drayman) with two 
regiments of soldiers to the Parliament House to turn 
out all members in favor of treating with the king. This 
expulsion went on until a hundred and forty of them had 
been sent off, and none remained except about fifty Inde- 
pendents, who could be relied on to execute the orders 
of the army (December, 1648). This high-handed action 
was popularly called "Pride's Purge," the body left as 
a Parliament receiving the name of "The Rump." 

Cromwell returned while the "clearance" was going 
on; he said he did not know of it, but was glad it had 
been done. The remnant of the Commons next voted 
that it was treason in the king to make war on the Par- 
liament, and that he should be tried for this offence. 
The House of Lords, now reduced to twelve members, 
not wishing to join in this vote, took a recess, hoping to 



EXECUTION OF CHARLES I. 281 

prevent it; but the Commons declared that, the people 
being the origin of all just power, the Commons of Eng- 
land are the superior authority of the nation, and that 
whatever is enacted by them has the force of law with- 
out the consent of the king or the House of Peers. 

In pursuance of this statement, the "Rump" appointed 
a High Court of Justice for the trial of the king, of which 
John Bradshaw was president, Cromwell, Ireton, and the 
chief officers of the army being members of it. The 
judges had also been appointed to serve on this court, 
but as they said the proceeding was contrary to law, 
they were excused from taking part in it. 

The king, after leaving Hurst Castle, was brought to 
London by General Harrison, one of the most violent of 
the Republican leaders, and lodged in the palace of 
Whitehall. The trial took place in Westminster Hall; 
the same room which had seen the dethronement of 
Richard II., the condemnation of Sir Thomas More, of 
the Protector Somerset, and of Lord Strafford; the same 
noble building which, divested of its judicial furniture, 
now forms the entrance to the Houses of Parliament 
The court consisted of one hundred and thirty-five per- 
sons, but there were never more than seventy present at 
any one sitting. 

The king, who had come from the palace in a sedan- 
chair, was escorted in by the sergeant -at -arms, and took 
his place in the seat set for him opposite the judges. He 
did not remove his hat, and the sixty -nine judges kept on 
theirs without rising from their seats. When addressed 
as Charles Stuart, King of England, and asked for his 
answer to the charge of being a tyrant, a traitor, and a 
murderer, the king denied the jurisdiction of the court 



282 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and refused to plead before it. This continued for three 
days. Then some witnesses were examined who testified 
that he had borne arms against the Parliament, and 
sentence of death was pronounced Jan. 27, 1648-49.* 

Only two of Charles's children were still in England; 
Elizabeth, aged twelve years, and Henry, aged nine. 
These were allowed to take leave of him, on the day 
before his death. The young girl remained a prisoner 
in the hands of the Republicans. She pined away, and 
•died the next year of a slight illness. The son was af- 
terward sent to his mother in France, but did not 
live to grow up. 

The execution was appointed for Jan. 30th, 1648-9, 
at two in the afternoon. A scaffold was erected outside 
the window of the banqueting-room of the palace of 
Whitehall, and out of this the king walked firmly, after 
spending several hours in devotion. He had meant to 
speak to the people, but seeing that none but soldiers 
were within hearing, he addressed himself to the few 
friends who were on the scaffold with him. Consistent 
to the last, he said that his people mistook the nature 
of government j that people are free, not by having a 
share in the government, but by assisting in its admin- 
istration. Bishop Juxon, his old friend, attended him. 
The king gave him his "George" t with the single word 
"Remember!" He then knelt in prayer for a few min- 
utes, and gave the signal to the executioner by stretch- 
ing out his hand. His head was severed at one blow, 
and when the masked executioner held up the "gray, 

*This date was then called 1648, as the year began on the 25th 
of April instead of the 1st of January, as at present, 
t A decoration belonging to the Order of the Garter. 



EXECUTION OF CHARLES I. 283 

•discrowned head" with the usual formula, "This is the 
head of a traitor!" a deep groan burst from the crowd 
around instead of the expected cheers.* 

Charles Stuart died in the forty-ninth year of his age 
and the twenty-fourth of his reign. 

No event in English history has been the subject of 
so much discussion as the judicial death of Charles the 
First. To the loyalists it was a deliberate murder; to 
the opposite party, a patriotic necessity. It was brought 
about by means as clearly illegal as any thing Charles 
had done; but those who did it justified themselves on 
the ground of political necessity. It could not have 
happened in a later age; coming when it did it is gen- 
erally considered a benefit to the cause of liberty. 

In his private life Charles I. was blameless. He was 
thoroughly refined, had a fine taste in literature, and was 
a generous patron of art. In all but his public dealings 
he was scrupulously honorable and gentlemanly. His 
false notions of the rights and duties of a king made 
him unfit to be one; while his habitual indecision pre- 
vented him from taking advantage of circumstances when 
they were favorable to him. Added to this, his absolute 
inability to speak the truth in political matters, took 
away his last chance of regaining his hold upon the 
affections of his people. 

The death of the king made a re-organization of the 

*Andrew Marvell, the friend of Cromwell and Charles's political 
■enemy, who was looking from a window at the time, wrote, 
"He nothing common did, or mean 
Upon that memorable scene; 
But laid his comely head 
Down, as upon a bed." 



284 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

government necessary. It was declared treason to ac- 
knowledge Charles Stuart (his son) as King of England, 
and a new seal was engraved with the motto, "The first 
year of freedom by God's blessing restored, 1648." No 
name was formally given to the new government, but it 
is generally called "The Commonwealth." All public 
business was done in the awkward name of "The Keepers 
of the Liberties of England." The House of Lords was 
abolished at the same time, as being "useless and dan- 
gerous." A Council of State composed of forty-one 
members, with Bradshaw as president, was next ap- 
pointed; but the real power naturally remained with 
Cromwell. His brother-in-law, Desborough, and his 
sons-in-law, Ireton and Fleetwood, held important com- 
mands in the army. John Milton, the poet, was ap- 
pointed Latin Secretary to the government. He had 
come back from his travels in Italy on account of the 
Civil War, and had already written some political works, 
and his poem of "Lycidas," which reflected severely on 
the Established Church. Among other writers of the 
royalist period were George Herbert and Francis Quarles,, 
religious poets; Sir John Suckling and Richard Lovelace, 
song writers, Isaac Walton and Sir Thomas Browne, 
essayists. Thomas Fuller, the Church historian, also^ 
lived at this period. 

The new government did not at first go on very har« 
moniously. More than half the Council refused to sign 
the required declaration that they approved of what had 
been done, and it was not until after violent disputes 
that this was dispensed with. Several of the principal 
royalist generals were beheaded, as were also the ring- 
leaders of a set called "Levellers," a sort of Socialists. 



EXECUTION OF CHARLES I. 285 

The chief resistance came from Scotland and Ireland. 
Presbyterians and Catholics were alike opposed to the 
Independents, who were now at the head of English 
affairs, and Charles II. was proclaimed in both countries. 
Cromwell went at once to Ireland, and by a succession 
of merciless slaughters reduced that country to obedi- 
ence. He next proceeded to Scotland, where the loyal- 
ists had met with a severe loss in the death of the Mar- 
quis of Montrose. He was betrayed by a pretended 
friend and taken prisoner to Edinburgh, where he was 
hanged with every circumstance of insult that vindictive- 
ness could devise.* Charles II. (we will call him so to 
distinguish him, though it was ten years before he re- 
ceived that title in England) landed in Scotland soon 
afterward, and was obliged, in order to be recognized as 
king, to sign the covenant, and profess many things which 
he did not believe. Cromwell met the Scottish army 
near Dunbar. Their number amounted to double that 
of his own, and his position was a very dangerous one. 
They advanced on him rashly, and were badly beaten 
Sept. 3, 1650. Edinburgh surrendered soon afterward. 

Charles II. was crowned King of Scotland, at Scone, 
as his ancestors had been, but he and his subjects did 
not get on well together. They preached at him a great 
deal, and required him to pursue a most distasteful way 
of life; so, seizing his opportunity, he gathered an army 
hastily together and marched into England, expecting 
that the Royalists there would join him. In this he was 
disappointed. Cromwell pursued him and overtook him 
at Worcester, where, after a sharp fight of five hours, the 

*See the beautiful poem entitled "The Execution of Montrose," 
in Aytoun's "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers." 



286 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

royal army broke and fled (Sept. 3, 165 1). This battle 
Cromwell called his "crowning mercy." The Scottish 
army of about 14,000 men were either killed or taken 
prisoners. Of the captives, 1500 were sold as slaves to 
the West Indies. The king left his companions without 
notice, and, accompanied by one faithful friend, CoL 
Carl ess, took refuge at Boscobel, a lonely farm-house 
owned by a man named Penderell. This man received 
the wanderers with the greatest kindness, dressed them 
in his own and his brother's clothes and protected them 
for several days. Charles spent one night concealed 
among the boughs of an oak tree, which might be still 
standing if it had not been cut down by tourists. It 
was called "The Royal Oak," and was long shown with 
veneration to travellers. The prince had all sorts of 
adventures. At one time he acted as the servant of 
Jane Lane, a young lady who rode many miles behind 
him on a pillion, to bring him to safe quarters. At last 
he joined his mother in Paris. 

Under Cromwell's vigorous and wise government, all 
prospered with England. Ireton finished the conquest 
of Ireland, Monk that of Scotland; Robert Blake, the 
great admiral, captured a Portuguese fleet of richly-laden 
vessels, because the Portuguese had been helping Prince 
Rupert. The "Channel Islands,"* the Scilly Islands and 
the Isle of Man, which held out for the king, were all 
subdued, the last named being defended by the heroic 
Countess of Derby, whose husband had been executed 
by the Parliament. t The English also had trouble with 
Holland, and to annoy their thriving neighbor they passed 

* Jersey, Alderney, etc., in the English Channel near France. 
+ See Sir Walter Scott's novel, "Peveril of the Peak." 



EXECUTION OF CHARLES I. 287 

the famous Navigation Act, by which all nations were 
forbidden to import any goods into England except in 
English vessels or in the vessels of the country produc- 
ing the goods. As the Dutch did most of the carrying 
trade in Europe, this was very offensive to them, and 
the two countries soon drifted into a war in which the 
English admiral Blake was opposed to the Dutch ad- 
mirals, Van Tromp and De Ruyter. They fought sev- 
eral battles, with various success, and Van Tromp sailed 
about with a broom fastened to his mast-head, to indi- 
cate that he was going to sweep the English from the 
sea. Thereupon Blake gathered up all his strength, and 
defeated him in a three days' battle off Portland. Van 
Tromp's own ship escaped, but the broom came down 
from the mast-head. 




CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE PROTECTORATE. THE RESTORATION. 

3JFTER some years, Cromwell became dissatisfied 
with the Long Parliament, and took a method 
peculiar to himself of putting an end to 
it. Dressed in his usual suit of plain black with gray 
worsted stockings, he took three hundred soldiers to the 
Parliament House, and, leaving them outside, went in 
and sat for a while, listening to the debate; then start- 
ing up he exclaimed, "This is the time! I must do it!"' 
and began loading the members with abuse. Sir Peter 
Went worth answered that it was the first time he had 
ever heard such language used in Parliament, and was- 



288 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

going on when Cromwell interrupted him with, "I will 
put an end to your prating. Call them in ! call them 
in!" Then stamping his feet (which was the signal for 
the soldiers to enter), he screamed out, "You are no 
longer a Parliament! The Lord has done with you! 
He will have other instruments to do his work!" Two 
files of musketeers entered the room, upon which Sir 
Henry Vane said, "This is not honest. Yea, it is 
against common morality." " Oh, Sir Harry Vane ! Sir 
Harry Vane! The Lord deliver me from Sir Harry 
Vane!" was Cromwell's only reply. Striding up to the 
table and laying his hand upon the mace, he cried out, 
"What shall we do with this bauble? Take it away!" 
The speaker declining to leave the chair, Major General 
Harrison said he would help him, and pulled him down 
by force. Cromwell, still wrought up to the highest 
pitch of passion, called out to the House, "It is you that 
have forced me to this ! I have sought the Lord night 
and day that He would rather slay me than put me upon 
this work!" When his soldiers had cleared the hall, 
Cromwell locked the door, put the key in his pocket, 
and marched off to his home at Whitehall.* 

The Council of State was dismissed in the same sum- 
mary way. "We have heard," said Bradshaw, the pres- 
ident, "what you have done this morning at the House. 
But you mistake, sir, if you think the Parliament dis- 
solved. No power on earth can dissolve the Parliament 
but itself!" 

The Rump had been so much disliked by the people 
that no outcry was made at this high-handed measure, 

* The French minister wrote home that there was now written, 
on the Houses of Parliament, "This House to be let, unfurnished \ ,r 



THE PROTECTORATE. THE RESTORATION". 289 

especially as Cromwell, having the whole army at his 
back, was for the time all-powerful. 

Choosing to keep up some of the form of constitution- 
ality, he now summoned, in his own name, a hundred 
and forty persons, from all parts of England, to frame a 
new Parliament. There was no pretence of an election. 
All sorts of people were assembled — Fifth Monarchy 
men* and those belonging to other fanatical sects — and 
these gave a character to the Parliament. Among the 
number was a noisy and ignorant man named Praise God 
Barebone; and he occupied so much of the time of the 
sessions with long prayers and speeches, that the assem- 
bly was called in derision, "Barebone's Parliament." Its 
more respectful name was, "The Little Parliament." 

Big or little, it was a great failure. Its counsels were 
confused, its meetings disorderly. Having passed sev- 
eral bills of doubtful wisdom, it crowned its operations, 
after having been in existence five months, by humbly 
surrendering to the lord general the powers it had re- 
ceived from him, and appointed a Council of State which 
conferred on him the office of Lord Protector (1653). 
His signature was like that of a king, only the first name 
being used. He wrote "Oliver P." (Protector) as the 
king had signed "Charles R." (Rex). His unmarried 
daughters were called the Lady Mary and the Lady 
Francis Cromwell, and both married into noble families. 

When he assumed his title a proclamation was issued 
by Charles II. (who was wandering about, glad to be pro- 
vided for by any one who would give him a home), which 

* Persons who expected a kingdom of Christ to arise which 
should abolish all human governments. The four preceding mon- 
archies had been the Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman. 
19 



290 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

began: "Whereas a certain base mechanic fellow, by 
name Oliver Cromwell, has usurped our throne," — and 
went on to offer a pension of ^500 a year to any one 
who should take his life. It did not do much of either 
good or harm. 

For the first time in the history of England a standing 
army was established, which was to be entirely under the 
Protector's control, thus enabling him to form a military 
despotism if he should be so inclined. All churchmen,, 
Presbyterians, and Royalists, were excluded from the Par- 
liament, and no one could be elected to it who had not 
an estate of at least ^"200. Finding that the first he- 
summoned was not disposed to submit blindly to his 
wishes, Cromwell dissolved it without ceremony, in a. 
storm of angry reproach (1655). 

After this, the Protector and his council ruled in the 
most arbitrary manner, levying taxes at discretion and 
imprisoning persons on suspicion, much as Charles had 
done. There was a strict censorship of the press, * and 
when people tried to obtain their rights by law, their 
counsel were sent Ij the Tower. 

It was a very moral England that Cromwell ruled over. 
Drunkenness and vagrancy were suppressed, though not 
apparently with cruelty, and Sabbath -breaking became 
very difficult. One man sat in the stocks for three hours 
for going to a neighboring town to hear a sermon on 
Easter -day and eating milk and cream with some other 
young folks, the entertainment costing each person two- 
pence. A tailor is punished for working until two o'clock 
on a Saturday night so as to finish a garment for some 

* A supervision which allows nothing to be published without 
being first examined and sanctioned by the government. 



THE PROTECTORATE. THE RESTORATION. 291 

one to go to church in. Profane swearing was followed 
by some hours in the stocks, and one could not say 
"Plague take you" without being fined for it. 

England had never been more respected abroad than 
during the reign of the Protector. Foreign powers saw 
that there must be no trifling with Oliver. He made a 
treaty with France by which Charles I.'s two sons were 
required to leave that kingdom, while the two countries 
joined in a war against Spain. More than one tyrant 
was forced, by the terror of his name, to cease from per- 
secutions which were the disgrace of Christendom. Blake 
cruised along the Mediterranean destroying the fleets of 
Algerine pirates, whose cruel ravages made its waters 
dreaded by all European seamen. Admiral Penn (father 
of our William Penn) and General Venables, attacked 
the Spanish West-Indian Islands; they were repulsed from 
Hayti, but took Jamaica. The Protector was so angry 
at the misfortune in Hayti that he forgot to be pleased 
with the capture of the smaller island. And yet Jamaica 
is not to be despised as an acquisition. 

Blake had many brilliant successes at sea, but died 
prematurely, worn out by hard work and exposure. He 
was strongly opposed, politically, to Cromwell's usurpa- 
tion of power, but said, "It is still our duty to fight for 
our country, into what hands soever the government may 
fall." He was the type of a true Christian soldier, and 
was borne to his grave in Westminster Abbey amid the 
tears and regrets of his countrymen. 

Cromwell had boasted, in the early part of his career, 
that he would make the name of Englishman as much 
•feared and respected abroad as ever that of Roman had 
been, and he found himself ably supported in his efforts. 



292 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

He said once, when negotiations were proposed with 
Spain, "There is no embassy like a ship of the line." 
For the first time since the death of Elizabeth, England 
became formidable to her neighbors. France and Spain, 
the Moor and the Pope, were obliged in turn to bow to 
her decisions. 

Cromwell called one more Parliament, from which he 
excluded all not favorable to his measures ; but he quar- 
reled with this as with the others, and dissolved it in a 
towering passion (1658). This Parliament offered him 
the coveted title of King, but the army opposed this so 
strongly that he did not venture to assume it. His career 
was now drawing to a close. He was encompassed by 
trouble at home; the country was deeply in debt; royalist 
plots were forming around him, and a book entitled 
"Killing no Murder," by one Colonel Titus of the army, 
boldly advised taking him off by violence. The Fifth 
Monarchy men were making a stir against him, and he 
lived in so great dread of assassination that he wore 
armor under his clothes and always carried pistols. He 
never let it be known by what road he was going to travel, 
nor slept more than two nights in succession in the same 
room, fearing to give his enemies a chance to make a 
plot against his life. His favorite daughter, Elizabeth 
Ciaypole, died at this time, and the event threw him into 
a gloom from which he never recovered. 

A gleam of pleasure came to him through the capture 
of Dunkirk* from the Spaniards, by the combined armies 
of France and England. The town was, by agreement, 
delivered to him, and was felt by the English to atone, 

* A city in French Flanders j now the most north-easterly town 
in France. 



THE PROTECTORATE. THE RESTORATION. 293 

in some measure, for the loss of Calais. This was the 
last public event of importance in his life-time. He was 
attacked by a slow fever, which was aggravated by his 
distress of mind, and on the anniversary of the battles of 
Dunbar and Worcester, he passed quietly away, Septem- 
ber 3, 1658, in the sixtieth year of his age.* 

Even Cromwell's enemies were obliged to confess that 
he was a great man. As regarded the people at large, he 
was a just and vigorous ruler; his foreign policy was far- 
sighted and brilliant; his aims, at least in the early part 
of his career, were of the noblest. But his plan of gov- 
ernment had a fatal weakness in it. It was built on the 
power of the sword. Fortunately, the people of England 
could be trusted to neutralize or destroy the dominion of 
any ruler who attacked their liberties; and their descend- 
ants in America, when their turn came, showed that the 
lesson had not been lost upon them. 

A noble feature of Cromwell's administration was its 
spirit of toleration. The Church of England was not 
interfered with, so long as its ministers did not preach 
against the government; and even the Jews, the outcasts 
of nations, would have been allowed, if the Protector had 
had his way, to return and settle legally in England. t 
There was such violent opposition to this measure that 
he was obliged to withdraw it; but the Jews came back 
by little and little, and in 1656 he permitted them to build 
a synagogue. George Fox, leader of the new sect calling 
themselves Friends, called by others Quakers, talked 
more than once with Cromwell, who is represented to 
have been favorably impressed by him. 

*Cromwell is one of the characters in Scott's novel, "Woodstock." 
+ Edward I. had banished them in 1290. 



294 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Cromwell left two sons ; Richard, a mild-tempered, in- 
offensive man, with very little capacity, and Henry, who 
had shown great ability as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 
and was in every way superior to his brother. Unfor- 
tunately it was taken for granted that the elder must 
inherit his father's title, and Richard Cromwell was 
named Protector, without opposition, on the day after 
Oliver's death. A Parliament was called, which imme- 
diately got into trouble with the army. General Lam- 
bert, a prominent officer, who had been the first to pro- 
pose the Protectorate, plotted against Richard; and the 
army, acting under his influence, compelled the latter 
to dissolve the Parliament. Being urged to support his 
claim by force of arms, Richard replied, "I will not 
have a drop of blood spilt for the preservation of my 
greatness. It is only a burden to me." He resigned 
his office, and the army controlled everything through a 
council of officers. General Monk, the ablest man in 
it, did his best for Richard as long as he remained Pro- 
tector, but then began secretly to conspire with the roy- 
alists, who saw their chance in these divisions. The 
council of officers recalled those members of the Long 
Parliament whom Cromwell had expelled in 1653, and 
as these were mostly Presbyterians, they and the Royal- 
ists combined against the Independents. As it was im- 
possible for the members to work in harmony, a new 
assembly, called the Convention Parliament, was sum- 
moned, which opened communication with the king, who 
was then at Breda, in Holland. Charles sent from that 
place a "Declaration," in which he promised everything 
that he thought would be acceptable to the people; and, 
since no one doubted that he would keep his word, he 



CHARLES II. TRIPLE ALLIANCE. 295 

was welcomed back with expressions of heartfelt joy. 
He entered London on his thirtieth birthday, May 29, 
1660. This event is called the Restoration. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

CHARLES II. TRIPLE ALLIANCE. TREATY OF DOVER. 




HARLES II. had, like his father, perfect health 
and a fine figure. His features were not, like 
his father's, handsome, but his manner was so 
agreeable that those conversing with him did not notice 
their harshness. 

Charles chose his ministers with discretion, taking 
them, without distinction, from opposite political parties. 
Edward Hyde, a statesman of ability and integrity, was 
made lord chancellor and prime minister, under the title 
of Earl of Clarendon. General Monk, to whom more 
than to any other person, Charles owed his restoration, 
was created Duke of Albemarle. James, Duke of York, 
the king's brother, was made Lord High Admiral. Of the 
so-called regicides (king-killers), the name given to the 
judges who tried Charles I., only six were executed. 
Many of them were dead; some were imprisoned, and 
a few escaped beyond sea. Two of these, Gofle and 
Whalley, came to America, and lived for many years in 
concealment in New England. Many of the Cavaliers 
were dissatisfied with the "Act of Indemnity and 
Oblivion," which ended the matter, and said the in- 
demnity was for the king's enemies, the oblivion for 
his friends. 



298 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

The Parliament had the childish folly to order that 
the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw should be 
dragged from their splendid tombs in Westminster Ab- 
bey, hung on the gallows at Tyburn for the space of one 
day, and then buried in a deep pit under it, their heads 
being cut off and fixed on Westminster Hall. Their 
estates were also confiscated. 

The army was now disbanded, except a few regiments- 
to serve as garrisons and to form a guard for the king. 
It was the general opinion that the men thus suddenly 
thrown upon the country would become marauders, or 
vagrants, but they were formed of too good material for 
that. They returned quietly to their former occupations,, 
causing scarcely a ripple upon the surface of society ; a 
state of things paralleled by our own experience after 
the War of the Rebellion. 

In religious matters, those who had expected tolera- 
tion were grievously disappointed. The Church of Eng- 
land was restored, of course; and two new laws were 
passed ; one called the "Act of Uniformity," requiring 
that every clergyman should be ordained by a bishop and 
should give up the Covenant, while the other, called the 
"Corporation Act," made it necessary for every magis- 
trate and every civic corporation to swear never, under 
any circumstances, to resist the king's authority. More 
than two thousand clergymen were expelled from their 
parishes for opposition to the Act of Uniformity. 

Laws of a better class were those abolishing the last 
remains of the feudal system, in the form of certain 
privileges of royalty which had become intolerable^ 
Instead ot them, the king took a yearly sum of money. 

When public affairs had somewhat settled down in 



CHARLES II. TRIPLE ALLIANCE. 297 

England, a new interest began to be felt in the colonies. 
King Charles, who was always ready to grant a tract of 
land in America to any one who asked for it, gave to 
certain persons called "Lords Proprietors" a large terri- 
tory cut off from the southern part of Virginia, to which 
was given the name of Carolina (from Carolus, the Latin 
for Charles). At a later period, an elaborate plan of 
government called the "Grand Model" was prepared for 
it. The Grand Model did not work well, however. The 
people soon grew dissatisfied with it, and early in the 
next century the tract was divided into two royal prov- 
inces called North and South Carolina. 

In the third year of his reign, Charles married Cather- 
ine of Braganza, a Portuguese princess, who brought him 
a large dowry in money, besides the city of Tangier in 
Africa. Though the annalists of that time say that she 
was "pretty enough," Charles did not admire her, but 
said, after seeing her for the first time, "Upon my word, 
they have brought me a bat instead of a woman \" He 
received her kindly, as he did every one, but soon began 
to treat her with neglect, bringing into the palace other 
women whom he openly preferred to her. The court 
became a scene of the vilest dissipation. The courtiers, 
both men and women, ridiculed whatever was good and 
virtuous, so that the better class of persons, of all relig- 
ious beliefs, withdrew themselves from court. With the 
main body of the people it was not so ; the Puritan leaven 
was still working among them, and they kept on their 
way, undisturbed by the scandals of high life. The friv- 
olity of Charles and his associates was of the most ex- 
pensive sort; and while hundreds of faithful friends who 
had sacrificed everything for the royal cause were left to 



■298 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

languish in poverty, he poured out money like water to 
satisfy the demands of worthless favorites, and to keep 
up a round of idle and vicious gayeties. By the advice of 
Clarendon, he sold the city of Dunkirk to France for 
^400,000, the minister thinking the king no longer able 
to support a fortress which required ^120,000 a year 
to maintain. The intention was good, but the result was 
only to give Charles more money to spend on his infam- 
ous pleasures. The English court became the ridicule 
of foreigners. In one Dutch print the king was repre- 
sented with his pockets "turned the wrong side outward, 
hanging out empty;" in another, two courtiers were 
employed in picking his pockets, while he looked on 
laughing. To obtain more money from Parliament he 
picked a quarrel with Holland, and before war was de- 
clared, the Duke of York was sent to take possession of 
New Amsterdam* (1664). The Dutch governor, Peter 
Stuyvesant, was quite unprepared, so the place was easily 
captured, as we know from American history. The whole 
province now forming the states of New York and New 
Jersey was bestowed on the Duke of York at the same 
time. He afterward granted New Jersey to two friends 
of his, Berkeley and Carteret, who in their turn sold it to 
the Quakers of Pennsylvania. 

A more terrible enemy than Hollander or Spaniard 
now attacked England. This was the Great Plague, 
which raged with such violence that 100,000 persons 
died of it in London alone (1665). The red cross, with 
the words, "Lord, have mercy on us!" marked many a 
door, and the doleful cry, "Bring out your dead!" 
sounded every morning as the death-carts took their way 

* Now the City of New York. 



CHARLES II. TRIPLE ALLIANCE. 299 

through the desolate streets. With the approach of 
winter, the pestilence slackened, and the Parliament, 
which on account of it had been summoned to meet at 
Oxford, now found leisure to pass the " Five- Mile Act." 
By this, no dissenting minister who had not taken the 
oaths of uniformity and non-resistance was allowed to 
•come within five miles of any city, nor of any place where 
he had formerly preached. There had already been 
passed a "Conventicle Act," which forbade all persons to 
meet together for worship in any private house, to the 
number of more than five in addition to the family. 
Fines, imprisonment, and transportation were the penal- 
ties attached to this offence. The jails were soon filled 
with men and women who felt that they had no right to 
refrain from meeting to worship God according to their 
consciences. In one of those jails, John Bunyan wrote 
the Pilgrim's Progress; in a hundred others, men as 
zealous and as earnest, gave their testimony in favor of 
freedom of worship. 

The horror attending the plague had scarcely passed 
away when the Great Fire again threw the people of 
London into consternation (1666). Four days it raged 
without cessation, among the wooden houses of which 
London was then largely built, and which were at that 
"vtime as dry as tinder. The fire was at last stopped by 
blowing up buildings, and it reminds one of modern 
times and cities to read, in a letter v/ritten four days after 
the flames ceased to spread, "The citizens, instead of 
complaining, discoursed almost of nothing but of a survey 
for rebuilding the city of bricks and with large streets." 
Unfortunately, however, the petty jealousies of proprie- 
tors prevented the grand plans of John Evelyn and Sir 



300 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Christopher Wren from being carried out, and the streets 
remained narrow and crooked as before. 

It does not give one a very lofty idea of the England 
of that day to know that when a great monument was 
built on Fish-street Hill, to commemorate the conflagra- 
tion, there was an inscription put on it saying that the 
Roman Catholics set the city on fire; and it is not a little 
surprising to know that this inscription was allowed to 
remain there until 1831. Pope refers to it in these lines: 

"Where London's column, pointing to the skies, 
Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies. " 

Meanwhile the war with Holland went on. There was 
now no Blake to strike terror to the nations, and up- 
hold the honor of England's flag. To save expense, or 
rather to have more money for his own pleasures, Charles 
had allowed the navy to run down; and the Dutch, tak- 
ing advantage of this, sailed up the Thames as far as 
London Bridge, burning the shipping as they went along. 
A timely peace put an end to these ravages (1667), but. 
the war added nothing to England's credit. 

Angry at this turn of affairs and determined to have a, 
victim, the Parliament, yielding to the murmurs of the 
people, required of the king the dismissal of Lord Clar- 
endon. Charles was glad to get rid of his minister, who^ 
looked with open disapproval on the immoral life of the 
court; and the faithful services of thirty years went for 
nothing. The earl was impeached by Parliament, and a, 
sentence of banishment passed upon him. He had per- 
haps made some errors of judgment, but there was not 
one of the king's courtiers at once so able and so patri- 
otic. Clarendon's daughter, Anne Hyde, was married 
to the Duke of York, Charles's brother, who tried to be- 



CHARLES II TRIPLE ALLIANCE. 301 

friend him ; but the indolent monarch did what was 
easiest for himself, and let his minister go. The latter 
spent the rest of his life in France, writing his "History 
of the Rebellion, " a valuable storehouse of facts, though 
naturally colored by the earl's political feelings. After 
Clarendon's fall, a new ministry was formed called the 
Cabal,* from the initials of their names, Clifford, Arling- 
ton, Buckingham, Ashley,t and Lauderdale. With the 
cooperation of these men, Charles now formed the first 
famous "Triple Alliance," — a treaty between England 
and Holland in which Sweden afterward joined, with the 
object of restraining the growing power and arrogance 
of Louis XIV. of France. Samuel Pepys says of it, 
"It is the only good thing that hath been done since the 
king came to England." The treaty was arranged at 
the Hague by Sir William Temple on the part of Eng- 
land, and John De Witt acting for Holland — both dis- 
tinguished statesmen. Charles himself never liked it, 
although, for reasons of policy, he had thought best to 
allow it to be carried through. Holland was a republic, 
which was enough to prejudice him against it; and he 
wished to be independent of his Parliament, which he 
could not be without the help of Louis XIV. Convey- 
ing, therefore, to Louis, an intimation of his wishes, the 
latter sent over the Princess Henrietta, wife of his own 
brother, the Duke of Orleans, and sister of Charles, 
who arranged the matter without difficulty. Charles 
met her at Dover, whither she brought a young French- 
woman, Louise de Queronailles, to help gain his consent. 
Under their influence, Charles made a secret and shame- 

* A set of men plotting together for some bad purpose. 
+ Better known afterward as Lord Shaftesbury. 



302 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ful agreement with Louis, called the Treaty of Dover, 
and adopted the young lady as one of his favorites. By 
this treaty, he promised to help Louis in his war against 
Holland (the very country with which England had 
formed the Triple Alliance), and to make a public pro- 
fession of the Roman Catholic religion "at some con- 
venient time." In return, Louis was to pay him a sum 
of money down and ^£2 00,000 a year as long as the 
war lasted, and to send him help in case of another re- 
bellion at home. Charles remarked that he did not 
think he was a king so long as a company of fellows (i. e. the 
Commons) were looking into his actions, and examining 
his ministers as well as his accounts. So England was 
sold by its sordid, selfish monarch, who had but one 
desire in the world — that for unlimited self-indulgence. 
The agreement was kept a profound secret from all but 
the few persons whom Charles took into his confidence, 
for if the people had known of it, either the Treaty of 
Dover or the king's reign would have ended at once. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

PLOTS. HABEAS CORPUS. DEATH OF CHARLES. 

S SOON as the Treaty of Dover was signed, 
Charles obtained a great sum from Parliament 
for fitting out a navy to uphold the Triple 
Alliance. Then he dissolved the Parliament and kept 
the money. As it was not enough for his wants (no 
money was), he suspended payment of the loans made 
by the goldsmiths and others to the exchequer (treasury),. 




PLOTS. DEATH OF CHARLES. 302 

which caused general bankruptcy and distress in all kinds 
of business. The king now issued a so-called "Declara- 
tion of Indulgence," which granted freedom of worship 
to all except Catholics, and even to them the privilege 
of having mass celebrated in their own houses. The 
jails were opened; Bunyan saw the end of his twelve 
years' imprisonment; the Quakers could again go about 
in peace; ministers returned to their congregations, and 
there were great rejoicings. Some thoughtful persons, 
however, shook their heads. The king had done this by 
his authority as head of the church; but the Parliament 
had made the laws — how could he unmake them? Ad- 
dresses were made to Charles, signed even by dissenters, 
to ask that he would withdraw the Declaration. "I 
would rather suffer the rigor of the law," said one of 
them, "than see all the laws of England trampled under 
fne foot of a prerogative." A new Parliament took the 
matter up, and declared that no penal laws could be 
suspended except by consent of Parliament, so the king 
was obliged to cancel the Indulgence. One more step 
on the road to freedom. 

Holland was now again attacked by Louis XIV., who 
expected, with the assistance of England, to make an 
end of its independence. The chief officer of the little 
republic was William, Prince of Orange, son of Charles's 
sister, Mary, and grandson of William the Silent. "Do 
you not see that your country is lost?" asked the English 
/ambassador, counselling submission. "There is a sure 
way never to see it lost," answered William, "and that 
is, to die in the last ditch." He was not driven to this,. 
however. When the French had fairly entered the coun- 
try, he cut the dykes that kept out the ocean, and flooded 



.30* HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the country. Louis's army was obliged to retreat, and 
Holland was saved. 

So strong a prejudice still existed in England against 
the Roman Catholics that the nation was not satisfied 
until a Test Act was passed, requiring every person who 
held any office, either civil or military, to subscribe to 
the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, to take the sacra- 
ment in the Church of England, and to deny all belief in 
transubstantiation. Upon this, thousands of Catholics 
gave up their offices, James, Duke of York (Charles's 
brother and Lord High Admiral) heading the list. Both 
3ie and his wife, Clarendon's daughter, had become Cath- 
olics after their marriage, though the king insisted that 
their daughters Mary and Anne (afterward queens of 
England) should be brought up as Protestants. Anne 
Hyde, James's first wife, being now dead, he married 
Mary of Modena,* an Italian princess, and a Roman 
Catholic, thereby giving great offence to the English. 

One of the strangest and wildest delusions known to 
history now took place in England. A wretched creature 
named Titus Oates, once a clergyman of the Church of 
England, but dismissed on account of his vicious prac- 
tices, pretended to have discovered a plot of the Roman 
Catholics to burn London, kill the king, massacre the 
Protestants, and deliver the kingdom into the hands of 
the French. Just at this time, Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey, 
a Justice of the Peace, who had heard some of the so- 
called evidence of the plot, was found dead in a field 
near London. It is probable that he committed suicide; 
but the cry went out that he had been murdered, in 
xevenge, by the Catholics, and the popular fury rose 

* Pronounced Mod/ena. 



PLOTS. DEATH OF CHARLES. 305 

higher than ever. Witnesses sprang up on all sides to 
swear to outrageous falsehoods, and it was not until after 
many victims had perished that the excitement calmed 
down. The most distinguished of these victims was 
Viscount Stafford, an old nobleman of the highest char- 
acter, whose gray hairs could not save him from the 
scaffold. After a while the prosecutions stopped, but it 
was long before London recovered from the excitement. 
Political affairs are so confused in this reign, so many 
laws were passed bearing on important subjects, so many 
public men, conspicious for ability and for good or ill 
fortune, pass in succession over the scene, that it is im- 
possible, in a short space, to give a clear idea of them. 
Sir William Temple, the framer of the Triple Alliance, 
one of the most high-minded of Charles's statesmen, after 
using his best efforts to bring order out of confusion, 
retired into private life and devoted himself to literary 
pursuits. Lord Halifax, known as a "Trimmer," (i. e. one 
who leans to either side as he sees one or the other likely 
to prevail) was the chief of the moderate men. Shaftes- 
oury, once high in the king's favor, quarreled with him 
and became one of the most violent leaders of the oppo- 
sition. Buckingham (son of the one who was stabbed at 
the beginning of Charles I/s reign) was the head of the 
"Cabal" ministry, and did what was in his power to make 
Charles II. an absolute ruler, independent of Parliament. 
The poet Dryden wrote of him thus, saying that he, 

"Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, 
Was everything by turns, and nothing long. " 

Sidney Godolphin, the man who, Charles said, was "never 
in the way and never out of the way," was high-minded 
and patriotic, and so useful that he served under four 
20 



306 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

successive sovereigns, and always with honor. Others^ 
whose names appear in larger histories, like the Earls of 
Danby and Sutherland, we can only mention here. 

Several bills of importance were passed during the 
winter of 1679-80. One of these was the "Habeas Corpus 
Act," which restrained illegal imprisonment by requiring, 
in open court, the trial of a prisoner, so that the cause 
for which he is shut up may be made known. An "Act 
for Disabling Papists" was also carried through, in con- 
sequence of which no Roman Catholic sat in the House 
of Commons from that time until 1829, a space of a. 
hundred and fifty years. 

As Charles had no children, the Duke of York was 
heir -presumptive to the throne. A strong effort was 
made by means of the "Exclusion Bill," to prevent his 
succeeding, but though the bill passed the Commons by 
a large majority, the Peers threw it out. 

A frightful persecution of the Covenanters in Scotland 
now took place, under the Duke of York as Lord High 
Commissioner and John Graham of Claverhouse, a bril- 
liant, hard-hearted general. There had been an in- 
surrection there, and after it was put down, scores of 
persons were shot or hanged without trial, and torture, 
which had been abolished in England in 1640, was mer- 
cilessly inflicted. The Duke of Monmouth, an illegiti- 
mate son of Charles II. by a woman named Lucy Walters, 
defeated the Covenanters at Bothwell Bridge. The Duke 
of York took pleasure in seeing the torture administered 
to "heretics," and would look on complacently at the 
application of the iron "boot" while the members of his 
council stole away in horror. 

The dread of a Roman Catholic succession and the 



PLOTS. DEATH OF CHARLES. 307 

indignation against Charles's misgovernment had now 
become so great that a conspiracy, called, from the place 
where the members met, the "Rye -House Plot," was 
formed to dethrone Charles, and put his son, the Duke 
of Monmouth, in his place. Some of the conspirators 
really intended to kill the king, as the shortest way of 
getting rid of him; others wished only to put him under 
some restraint, so that he would be incapable of further 
mischief. There were others, including two of the first 
statesmen in the kingdom, Lord Russell and Algernon 
Sidney, who had talked over among themselves the evils 
of the state, and discussed a possible remedy. Some con- 
versation of this kind was reported by a traitor, and on 
this Russell and Sidney, the latter a man of letters, and 
author of "Discourses on Government," were condemned 
to die (1683). With the usual brutality of the time, they 
were denied the assistance of counsel; both conducted 
their own defence with ability and spirit; but the result 
was inevitable. Lady Russell was with her husband dur- 
ing his trial, arranging his papers and handing them to 
him as he needed them. Both these executions were 
clearly judicial murders, sentence being given without 
anything to be called proof of the offence. 

The king was now drawing near the end of his career. 
His last appearance in public is thus described in the 
words of an eye-witness. Mr. John Evelyn: "I can never 
forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming 
and all dissoluteness, and as it were total forgetfulness of 
God, last Sunday evening at Whitehall. The king sitting 
and talking with several women, a French boy singing 
love-songs in that glorious gallery, while above twenty of 
the great courtiers and other dissolute persons were play- 



308 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ing cards around a large table, a bank of at least two 
thousand in gold before them." The next morning the 
king was struck with apoplexy. He regained his senses 
and was able to speak, but lived only a few days. Just 
before his death, his brother James, having cleared the 
room where he was lying, smuggled a Catholic priest up 
a private stairway into the room, and Charles received 
the last sacraments of the Romish church. Soon after 
this, he died, in the fifty-fifth year of his age and the 
twenty-fifth of his reign. The people lamented his death 
very sincerely, for though there was much to be blamed 
in his administration, they feared that worse was to come. 
Charles II. seems to have possessed scarcely any vir- 
tue besides a natural courtesy and good temper. He 
was always agreeable. A witty minister, the Earl of 
Rochester, once pinned on Charles's door this verse, 
professing to be his epitaph : 

"Here lies our sovereign lord, the king, 
Whose word no man relies on; 
Who never said a foolish thing, 
Nor ever did a wise one." 

When this was repeated to Charles, he said it was 
quite true, for his words were his own, but his actions 
were his minister's. 

The party names "Whig" and "Tory" came into use 
in this reign, whig signifying one who wished reforms 
made in the government, and tory a conservative, or 
one who wished to keep things as they were. The words 
soon acquired an additional meaning, tories being those 
who stood out for the prerogative of the king, and whigs 
those who would uphold the supremacy of the people. 

Tne quarter of a century which ended with the death 



PLOTS. DEATH OF CHARLES. 309 

of Charles, was a brilliant one for literature. Milton had 
written "Paradise Lost;" Bunyan, the "Pilgrim's Pro- 
gress;" Clarendon had told the world about the Rebellion, 
Butler had satirized the Puritans in "Hudibras", and Mar- 
vell had done a like work for the Cavaliers. Pepys and 
Evelyn had written the inimitable diaries which make the 
social life of that day as real to us as is that of our own 
century. Locke was writing his "Essay on the Human 
Understanding," and Dry den, the dramatist, who died 
in 1700, had already produced many plays. But per- 
haps the name which comes nearest to our American 
hearts is that of William Penn. 

His father, Admiral Penn, the conqueror of Jamaica, 
was seriously annoyed by the discovery that his son, who 
ought to have been a good courtier, had joined the un- 
popular sect of the Quakers. Finding that he could not 
persuade him to change his mind, the admiral turned him 
out of doors; but having a great respect as well as affec- 
tion for him, was induced to receive him into favor again. 
The father had lent a large sum of money to King 
Charles, and after the admiral's death, William asked 
that instead of the money the king should grant him 
some land in America, on which to found a refuge for 
his persecuted brother-Quakers. Nothing could please 
Charles better than to avoid, by any expedient, the pay- 
ment of a debt; and a tract was selected to which Penn 
gave the pretty name of Sylvania, which means wood- 
land. The king, however, insisted upon the prefix Penn, 
and from the king's word there was no appeal. 




310 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

JAMES II. SEDGEMOOR. THE SEVEN BISHOPS. FLIGHT 
OF THE KING. 

SHALL make it my endeavor," said James II. 
at the first meeting of his privy council, "to 
preserve the government, both in church and 
state, as it is now by law established." How he suc- 
ceeded in his endeavor, we read in the pages of history. 

If James could have remained simply a naval com- 
mander, a post for which he was well fitted, the English 
people might have forgotten his desertion to the Church 
of Rome, and forgiven his questioning Covenanters by 
means of the "boot." As a king, however, his power to 
do harm was so much increased that he was watched 
more jealously than before, and soon gave ample evi- 
dence that he needed such watching. 

His first public act was to order the collection of 
customs duties, which could be legally done only by 
order of Parliament. Then he released from prison, on 
his own authority, not only Romanists, but other non- 
conformists, to show that his disregard of law was sys- 
tematic and not personal. He went openly to mass, a 
penal offence. On the other hand, all the chief offices 
remained in the hands of Protestants. Rochester, Clar- 
endon (son of Charles II. 's prime minister, who was now 
dead), Godolphin, Sunderland, Halifax, occupied the 
chief places in his cabinet. 

It is not to be supposed that the infamous Titus Oates 
escaped the reward of his crimes when James came into 



JAMES II. SEDGEMOOR. SEVEN BISHOPS. 311 

power. He was punished with a ferocity which brought 
a glow of pleasure to the king's cruel heart. Besides 
being fined, having to stand twice in the pillory and 
being sentenced to life imprisonment, all of which he well 
deserved, he was whipped through the city with unusual 
severity from Oldgate to Newgate on one day, and then 
from Newgate to Tyburn two days afterward. On the 
second day, not being able to stand, he was dragged 
through the streets on a hurdle, receiving on that day 
seventeen hundred lashes. The judges meant to kill 
him with these floggings, as his offence was not one for 
which he could be hung, but the wretch survived them, 
and lived through James's reign, standing in the pillory 
five times a year, until at the accession of a Protestant 
king, he was liberated and provided with a pension. 

The Duke of Monmouth had been in Holland during 
the last years of his father's life, in disgrace on account 
of his connection with the Rye-House Plot. Unwise 
counsellors now urged him to take advantage of James's 
unpopularity to make a claim to the throne of England, 
under the pretext that his mother had been married to 
Charles II. Monmouth, a handsome, amiable youth, 
but weak in character, caught at the bait. He landed 
in Dorsetshire, on the southern coast, with scarcely a 
hundred followers; but the people, disliking the sombre 
James, and detesting popery, flocked to his standard, 
and he soon found himself at the head of six thousand 
men. At Taunton, his adherents thronged the streets, 
•every one with a green bough in his hat; the houses 
were hung with garlands ; flowers were strewn in his 
path, and a troop of young girls went in procession to 
offer him twenty-seven standards, worked by their own 



312 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

hands. In a declaration published by Monmouth on 
landing, in which he abused his uncle, James II., in very- 
discourteous language, Monmouth had said that he 
would leave his claim to be decided by a free Parlia- 
ment. At Taunton, however, he assumed the title of 
king, and issued proclamations dated "from our camp 
at Taunton, in the first year of our reign." Moving 
northward, he heard of the defeat and capture of 
Argyle, who had raised an army for him in Scotland. 
Affairs began to look dark. One discouragement suc- 
ceeded another, and in a few days he came up with the 
royal army at Sedgemoor. The battle was soon decided. 
Monmouth's army of peasants and miners gave way and 
fled, the unhappy leader taking shelter in a ditch. Here 
he was found, almost starving, with only a few raw peas 
in his pocket. He was taken to prison, where he wrote 
an abject letter to James, begging for an interview, ex- 
pressing deep contrition, and accusing the friends who 
had led him away with false arguments. James had the 
incredible meanness to see him and let him crawl up to 
him on his knees, begging for life, and then to dismiss 
him coldly to his fate. Monmouth was beheaded on 
Tower Hill, in the thirty-sixth year of his age (1685). 

Then began the butchery of his followers. James had 
chosen for the accomplishment of this task the two fittest 
instruments in England; Colonel Kirke, whose " Lambs n 
(a regiment of soldiers so called) had been trained to 
ferocity by practice among the Moors in Tangier; and 
Judge Jeffreys, a debased wretch to whom the king held 
out the promise of the office of Lord Chancellor, as a 
bait to engage him to do his work thoroughly. Kirke 
hanged his prisoners in batches without the form of a 



JAMES II. SEDGEMOOR. SEVEN BISHOPS. £13 

trial. The story is told that while the bodies were still 
quivering, he would order the drums to beat, saying that 
they should have music for their dancing. Such an im- 
mense number of persons were quartered that their re- 
mains were thrown into great cauldrons of boiling pitch, 
to get rid of them. Kirke kept no record of his deeds, 
but it was believed at the time that he hanged a hundred 
prisoners during the week after the battle. He was re- 
called in displeasure by the government, not on account 
of his barbarity, but because all the rich rebels got off 
by bribing him. 

Then came the circuit of Jeffreys. His first trial was 
of Alice Lisle, an old gentlewoman who was accused of 
harboring two of the rebels for a night. Jeffreys ordered 
her to be burnt to death. Such a protest was raised 
against this that he was obliged to commute the punish- 
ment to beheading. A poor woman named Elizabeth 
Gaunt, guilty of the same crime, was burnt alive. During 
what was called "The Bloody Assizes," this judge hanged 
three hundred and thirty persons, besides condemning 
others to fines, imprisonment, and whipping, and sentenc- 
ing hundreds to be sold into slavery in the West Indies. 
In this last horrible traffic, the queen and her ladies 
joined, and begged for prisoners that they might make 
money by their sale. The office of Lord Chancellor was 
conferred on Jeffreys, as the king had promised, in re- 
ward for his zeal. 

The laws against the Romanists were not repealed, 
but they were openly violated by the king and by all 
Catholics. The public discontent being plainly shown 
at this, James established a camp of thirteen thousand 
men at Hounslow to keep London in order. In Scotland, 



314 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

he caused a law to be passed punishing with death and 
confiscation of property all who attended conventicles in 
the open air, or who preached at them. In Ireland the 
army was put under the charge of Lord Tyrconnel, who 
turned out many Protestant officers and added great 
numbers of Irish Catholics to the ranks. All this showed 
the English what they were to expect in their own country. 
It seemed as if James exerted all his ingenuity to do 
whatever would be most offensive to the English people. 
He reestablished the Court of High Commission; he 
took money from France, though not so secretly but that 
he was found out; he sent an ambassador to Rome to 
express his wish that England might be received into the 
church as in Queen Mary's time; he forced a Romish 
priest on one of the colleges at Oxford.* Next, he pub- 
lished a Declaration of Indulgence, stating that non-con- 
formity to the established religion should no longer be 
punished, and ordered that on a certain Sunday this de- 
claration should be read in all the churches (1688). This 
ordinance the clergy, as a general thing, did not obey, 
and seven bishops, including Archbishop Sancroft, pre- 
sented to the king a humble petition against it. James 
was enraged at what he called their insolence, and the 
bishops were committed to the Tower. On their way 
thither, the banks of the Thames were lined with crowds 
of persons who knelt and implored their blessing, utter- 

*The young Duke of Somerset was ordered to introduce the 
Pope's messenger into James's presence-chamber. "I am advised," 
he answered, "that I can not obey your Majesty without breaking 
the law." "Do you not know that I am above the law?" said 
James angrily. "Your Majesty may be, but I am not," answered 
the duke, and was dismissed from his post. 



JAMES II. SEDGEMOOR. SEVEN BISHOPS. 315 

ing cries to Heaven for their deliverance. The trial took 
place in Westminster Hall, the bishops being charged 
with "publishing a false and seditious libel." They were 
acquitted, and bonfires, bell-ringings, and illuminations 
testified to the joy of the people. 

In the midst of this excitement, a son was born to the 
•queen. This event completed the general dissatisfaction. 
While King James's Protestant daughter Mary was heir 
presumptive to the crown, his subjects bore his tyranny, 
thinking that when he died there would be a change for 
the better; but to look forward to having the son of 
James II. and Mary of Modena reign over them was 
more than they could bear. Their eyes naturally turned 
to the Princess Mary and to her husband, William of 
Orange, who, being himself a grandson of Charles I., was 
the next heir to the throne after the family of James. An 
intimation to this effect being conveyed to William, he 
began to make preparations for an invasion. James was 
thunderstruck at hearing of this. It had never occurred 
to him that he could not to the end of his days go on 
trampling on the liberties of the people, and he suddenly 
poured forth concessions, relinquishing the things he had 
insisted on, replacing the officers he had turned out, 
and trying to make friends with the people he had in- 
sulted; but it was too late. 

In September, 1688, the Prince of Orange published 
a declaration which was eagerly read throughout the 
country, stating that he, from his near relationship to the 
kingdom, felt it his duty to protect the civil and religious 
liberty of its people, and denying that he had any further 
object in view than the calling of a free Parliament. 
With a fleet of sixty ships and fifteen thousand men he 



316 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

landed at Torbay on the south coast, and marched north- 
ward, his army increasing as he advanced. When James 
took command of his camp at Salisbury,* he found the 
desertion of his soldiers so extensive that he decided to 
retreat towards London, thus making his weakness only 
the more evident. 

Besides these defections, the king had others most un- 
expected to him. Lord Churchill (afterward Duke of 
Marlborough) who owed everything to James, and who 
had been loaded by him with favors, went over to the 
enemy, taking with him many of the officers on whom 
the king most depended. But this was not the worst. 
He and his wife had acquired an unbounded influence- 
over the Princess Anne, James's daughter, a weak, dull 
woman, married to Prince George of Denmark; and the 
Churchills persuaded this couple also to leave the king 
and go to the camp of the Prince of Orange. 

This last blow seemed to touch James more nearly 
than any other. He burst into tears on hearing of Anne's 
escape, and exclaimed, "God help me! My own chil- 
dren have forsaken me!" He sent away his queen and 
infant son to France; and being convinced, from the 
intelligence brought to him, that his cause was hopeless^ 
he himself fled, with one attendant, throwing the great 
seal into the Thames, to prevent its being used in call- 
ing a Parliament. 

Nothing could have pleased William of Orange and 
the English people in general so much as to have King^ 
James run away, as he had done; and they were all 
very much disgusted when it was found that he had 
been captured by some fisherman at Sheerness, as he was 

* Pronounced Saulsbury. 



JAMES II. SEDGEMOOR. SEVEN BISHOPS. 317 

making his escape in disguise. He was necessarily 
brought back to London, but every facility was given 
him for escaping again; and while he imagined himself 
to be cleverly outwitting his enemies, they were really 
opening bolts and bars before him, so that nothing could 
throw him again on their hands. This time he really 
got away, embarked on a ship which was waiting for 
him, and hastened to Paris, where he was received with 
great kindness by Louis XIV., who gave him a splendid 
establishment at St. Germains, and supported him in 
luxury as long as he lived. 




CHAPTER XL. 

REVOLUTION OF 1 688. WILLIAM AND MARY. 

E have now arrived at the third of the three great 
R's of the seventeenth century: the Rebellion, 
the Restoration, and the Revolution. The 
latter is commonly known by the prefix "glorious. " If 
the Commonwealth had continued, the events of 1642- 
49 would have made a revolution ; as the old state of 
things in 1660 was reestablished, it is known as a 
rebellion. Revolution is successful rebellion. 

William of Orange, whom we must henceforth call 
William III. of England, was careful to observe all the 
forms of government. A convention was called (there 
could be no lawful Parliament, because there was no king 
to issue the writs for one) in which, after stating the 
throne to be vacant by the desertion of James, it was 
decided to offer it to William and Mary for their joint 



318 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

lives, and to William if he should survive his wife. The 
administration was to be altogether in his hands, To 
this was added a Declaration of Rights, in which the 
real worth of the Revolution consists. The points in- 
sisted on were these: i. The king can not dispense with 
the laws, nor suspend their execution ; 2. He can not 
levy money without the consent of Parliament; 3. Sub- 
jects have the right of petition ; 4. The king can not keep 
up a standing army in time of peace without the consent 
of Parliament; 5. Parliament must be frequently assem- 
bled, and elections and debates must be free. Other 
items were added, still further limiting the power of the 
crown; and, as Macaulay says, "The highest praise of 
the Revolution of 1688 is that it was the last." 

It was a grand country that William and Mary now 
took in charge. Though the whole century had been 
one of political struggle, with an occasional battle like 
Marston Moor, or Naseby, the general prosperity had 
gone on with a steady increase. Fields were tilled, 
mines worked, commerce carried on, manufactures im- 
proved; the people were better off, more comfortably 
lodged, better fed and clothed in 1688 than in 1588. 
Something like a post-office was established, and it was 
a matter of pride to say that a letter could be carried 
three hundred miles and an answer received in five days. 
This rate of speed was attained by means of relays of 
post-horses. The government was very jealous of news- 
papers, but Charles II. allowed the publication of the 
London Gazette, which has been issued now (1891) twice 
a week for more than two hundred years. Clubs took, 
to some extent, the place of daily journals. News passed 
from mouth to mouth, and a gentleman went to his club 



REVOLUTION. WILLIAM AND MARY. 319 

to hear the latest items of interest and know what others 
thought of them, as he now takes up his morning paper. 

In point of comfort, there was still much to be desired. 
The roads from one town to another were almost im- 
passable. The streets of London were unpaved, and 
were not lighted, except by private individuals, until the 
last year of Charles II.'s reign. Even then, the dim oil 
lamps would seem only to make ''darkness visible" in 
comparison to our gas and electricity. Carpets gradu- 
ally took the place of straw and rushes. There were no 
circulating libraries; those who wanted to read books 
must borrow or buy them. The state of education among 
women is shown by an inscription written by Queen 
Mary, wife of William III. (who was probably as well 
educated as most women of her time), in a gorgeously 
bound Bible, "This book was given to the king and I 
at our coronation." Foreign princesses were even worse 
off. James II. records in his journal that when Mary of 
Modena was told that she was to marry him, she asked 
who he was. "She had been so innocently bred," he 
observes, "that she did not know of such a place as 
England, nor of such a person as the Duke of York." 

The enthusiasm with which the arrival of William III. 
had been hailed, diminished as he was brought into per- 
sonal contact with the English. He had cold, distant 
manners, and so little command of the language that he 
was usually silent in company. The common people 
distrusted him as a foreigner, and a very large proportion 
of the better class considered him a usurper. It was 
plain that his position was going to be a difficult one, 
and that it would need great judgment and discretion to 
steer clear of the dangers which surrounded him. 



320 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

These were just the qualities in which William excelled. 
He chose his ministers from among the statesmen most 
trusted by the English people, even though some of them 
had opposed his being made king. His dearest friend, 
William Bentinck, a native of Holland, was made a privy 
councillor, with the title of Duke of Portland. 

His first trouble in England arose in connection with 
the army. Some regiments having shown themselves dis- 
contented, William, by the advice of his council, decided 
to send them to Holland and supply their places with 
Dutch troops. This made them still more indignant, 
and they marched northward in open mutiny, with drums 
beating and colors flying. They were put down by some 
Dutch regiments which were sent in pursuit of them, 
and severely punished, while Parliament for the first 
time passed a Mutiny Bill, placing the army under mar- 
tial law. Up to this time a soldier was considered a 
citizen, and even if he struck his commanding officer, 
he was liable only to the penalty for assault and battery. 

Many members of the House of Lords, including 
Archbishop Sancroft and several other bishops, refused 
to take the oath of allegiance to William, on the ground 
of their previous obligations to James. Such persons 
were called "non-jurors," and, in the case of the clergy, 
were afterward deprived of their livings. 

To emphasize still more the distinction between the 
non-juring prelates and the loyal subjects of William, 
a "Toleration Act" was passed, allowing freedom of 
worship to all who took the oaths of allegiance and 
supremacy, and denied the doctrine of transubstanti- 
ation. This relieved the disabilities of all dissenters ex- 
cept the Roman Catholics. During these debates, the 



REVOLUTION. WILLIAM AND MARY. 321 

double coronation took place, and as the Archbishop 
refused to officiate at it, the ceremony was performed by 
the Bishop of London. 

In Scotland, a strong party still held out for King 
James, at the head of which was Graham of Claverhouse, 
now created Viscount Dundee. He raised a small 
force of Highlanders with whom he defeated a much 
larger number of English in the battle of Killiekrankie, 
but was himself mortally wounded. The Highlanders, 
discouraged, dispersed to their homes, Edinburgh Castle, 
which held out against William, surrendered, and the 
whole country was reduced to obedience (1689). To 
gratify the Scotch, William abolished Episcopacy, and 
Presbyterianism has since been the recognized religion 
of the country. 

James II. had not given up the struggle for his crown. 
Being supplied with a fleet and army by Louis XIV., 
he landed at Kinsale, in Ireland, and marched to 
Dublin, being joined by great numbers of the Irish. 
The city of Londonderry held out against him and was 
besieged by his forces for 105 days, during which time 
the inhabitants suffered the extremity of hunger. A 
Presbyterian clergyman named Walker put himself at the 
head of the garrison, whose commander had deserted 
them, and conducted the defense with skill and energy. 
Just as it seemed as if the defenders must give up 
from starvation, relief came from England, and James's 
general, DeRosen, moved away. The protestant town 
of Enniskillen was also successfully defended on the 
field of Newton Butler. 

The great battle of the war was yet to come. It 
was fought in person by the two kings, on the bank of 
21 



322 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the River Boyne, not far from Dublin. James's army 
was inferior in numbers to William's, but his position 
was so strong that he ventured to fight. The king was 
wounded, a bullet grazing his shoulder, but the English 
won the day. The loss on both sides was small, con- 
sidering the important issues at stake. James himself 
set the example of flight when he saw that the battle 
was going against him, and his soldiers dispersed, so 
that when he reached Dublin he was without an army, 
and took ship as soon as 1 possible for France. This 
engagement is called "The Battle of the Boyne" (1690). 

William returned to London in triumph, after an 
absence of only five weeks. While he was away a 
naval battle had been fought with the French off 
Beachy Head in Sussex, in which the enemy were 
victorious. The commander, Lord Torrington, was 
incompetent, and the battle was an ignominious one. 
There were fears that the French would pursue the 
beaten fleet up the Thames and threaten London as 
the Dutch had done in Charles II.'s time; but they 
only burned the town of Teignmonth and went home. 
William was extremely angry with Torrington, who had 
put the Dutch ships where they would bear the brunt 
of the battle; and though the admiral was acquitted 
by a court-martial, William would not see him, and 
ordered him to be dismissed from the service. 

One more naval battle finished the war. It was 
fought off Cape La Hogue in Normandy, King James 
commanding the French fleet and Admiral Russell the 
combined Dutch and English one. The latter gained 
a brilliant victory, and as Louis refused to furnish 
James with further aid, the deposed king retired to 



REVOLUTION. WILLIAM AND MARY. 323 

St. Germains (1691). From this time he disappears 
in person from English history, though his name was 
still a rallying word for all discontent, and the plots 
of his friends never ceased to distract the tranquillity 
of William's reign. 




CAPTER XL I. 

GLENCOE. DEATH OF MARY. PEACE OF RYSWICK. 
DEATH OF WILLIAM III. 

HE war in Ireland was not ended by the Battle 
of the Boyne. Most of the country was still 
in possession of James's friends; and it was 
only at the close of the year 1691 that the struggle 
closed with the Pacification of Limerick. By this it was 
agreed that the Irish who consented to acknowledge 
William should be allowed to enjoy their religion and 
their property, while all others were offered free pas- 
sage to France. Twelve thousand men under Gen- 
eral Sarsfield availed themselves of this offer, and were 
promised by him that their families should accompany 
them. When the troops prepared to embark, however, 
it was found that there was not room enough for all, 
and hundreds of women and children were left on 
the shore to die of slow starvation or to beg their way 
home, there to endure untold misery, deprived of their 
natural protectors. 

Between the two victories, the battle of the Boyne 
and that of Cape La Hogue, a horrible tragedy took 
place in Scotland for which William III. is at least 



324 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

partly responsible. The Highland chiefs who had been 
engaged in the rebellion under Dundee were slow in 
taking the oath of allegiance to the new king, and one 
of them, Macdonald of Glencoe, put it off until the last 
day allowed by the treaty, Dec. 31, 1691. On arriv- 
ing at Fort William, which he supposed to be the place 
appointed for taking the oath, he found no one there 
qualified to administer it, and in great distress of mind 
made his way, through heavy snow-storms and over 
steep mountains to Inverary. He had spent six days on 
the toilsome journey, and with difficulty persuaded the 
sheriff to allow him to take the required oath. Unfor- 
tunately, his deadly enemy, Sir John Dalrymple, Mas- 
ter of Stair, had procured from William an order for 
the extermination of the Macdonald clan. This mis- 
creant sent a body of soldiers to the peaceful village 
of Glencoe, where they were hospitably entertained 
for a fortnight, the Highlanders freely sharing with 
them everything they had. At a preconcerted time 
each party of soldiers undertook to murder every male, 
old and young, in the houses where they were quar- 
tered; and in the early morning, after an evening of 
gayety spent in drinking and playing cards, wild shrieks 
proclaimed that the work of death was begun. Some 
forty persons were massacred, including some women 
who were trying to defend their children. About two<- 
thirds of the inhabitants escaped, though many of these 
died of cold and hunger while fleeing through the 
mountains. 

William's apologists have tried to excuse him on the 
ground that he did not know what he was doing in 
signing the order to "extirpate that set of thieves, if they 



DEATHS OF MARY AND WILLIAM LLI. 325 

can be well distinguished from the rest of the High- 
landers." But the order itself remains, and is a horrible 
monument of the brutal use of power. 

Among the political changes in William's reign was 
the establishment of a Cabinet, or Council of Ministers, 
all chosen from the same political party, and thus acting 
together. Until this time, each of the king's council had 
been independent of the others, and their advice was 
often contradictory. This new kind of ministry proved 
most efficient in the transaction of public business, and 
gradually became, what it continues to the present day, 
a kind of committee of the House of Commons. 

Many great public measures were now carried forward. 
A bill was passed for a triennial Parliament; the censor- 
ship of the press was abolished, after vhich a host of 
newspapers sprang up, and a national bank was created, 
which regulated and made permanent the national debt. 

The war against Louis XIV., to prosecute which was 
the great object of the king's life, continued for some 
years with varying success. William gained some bril- 
liant victories, but lost the battles of Steenkirk and Lan- 
den, and his fleet met with reverses at sea. His misfor- 
tunes encouraged to renewed efforts the partisans of 
James, who never ceased to intrigu* against him, and 
who included among their number some of the ablest 
men in the kingdom. The double-dyed traitor, Marl- 
borough, was again in communication with James, wait- 
ing only for an opportunity to bring him back; and the 
inconstant Sunderland was also suspected of favoring his 
return. Embarrassed by these difficulties on every hand, 
William sustained a severe blow in the loss of his wife, 
who died of small-pox (1694). In later years, he had 



326 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

been devoted to her, though her early married life was 
far from being a happy one. She was a woman of marked 
ability, and had been left regent in England during her 
husband's frequent absences on the continent, always 
performing the duties of the office with success, even 
under the most trying circumstances. Mary was only 
thirty -two years old. 

It had long been the queen's desire that the palace at 
Greenwich, which had never been completed, should be 
turned into a hospital for disabled soldiers. After her 
death, William carried out her wishes and Greenwich 
Hospital became a noble monument of her benevolence 
and his affection. It is now occupied as a Royal Naval 
Academy and Hospital- School. Mary had been an ex- 
cellent wife, supplying by her graciousness of manner 
and her many agreeable qualities the popular elements 
which were lacking in her husband's character. Bishop 
Burnet, a famous contemporary preacher and author, was 
the intimate friend of both William and Mary, and has 
left most interesting records of their private life. 

The long war between England and France was 
brought to an end in 1697 by the Treaty of Ryswick. 
In this treaty, Louis, besides giving up many of his con- 
tinental conquests, agreed to acknowledge William III. 
as king of England, and to do nothing that would inter- 
fere with his claim. This was a glorious victory for 
William, and put an end, for the time at least, to the 
machinations of the Jacobites in England. The settlers 
in America had good reason to be glad of it, for it marked 
the close of that period of horror in the colonies known 
as "King William's War," which included the massacre 
at Schenectady (1690). But little progress had been 



DEATHS OF MARY AND WILLIAM III. 327 

made in the colonies during the century that was now 
closing. Our forefathers, still struggling for a foothold 
in the new world, were scarcely noticed in the old; 
although preparing to take, in less than another hundred 
years, their place in the family of nations. 

A singular project was started at the close of this war, 
for colonizing a part of America very different from the 
sterile coast of New England. A Scotchman named 
William Paterson, who had been one of the original 
founders of the Bank of England, persuaded himself and 
others that untold wealth was to be had almost for the 
asking in the fertile regions about the Isthmus of Darien. 
A company was organized to go to this Land of Promise, 
but the settlers met fever, pestilence, and starvation, 
while Spanish guns finished the work that hunger and 
destitution had begun. Their fort in ruins, their huts 
burned, the fertile soil that they meant to cultivate filled 
with their graves, the few survivors found their way to 
Jamaica or to some port on the Atlantic coast, and the 
Darien Colony was a thing of the past except in the mem- 
ory of those who had duped themselves and others with 
visions of unearned wealth. 

Among the foreign visitors of this reign was a young 
barbarian chieftain who was afterward known as Peter 
the Great, Czar of Muscovy. He eschewed forms and 
ceremonies, detested being stared at, and went to sleep 
at dinner parties given in his honor; but he accomplished 
what he came for, which was to study the English manner 
of ship-building. From the ways of these visitors, we get 
a glimpse of the condition of things two hundred years 
ago in what is now the Russian Empire. John Evelyn's 
beautiful country-house at Deptford was hired by the 



328 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

king for his accommodation, because it was near the ship- 
yard; and the great Peter amused himself by driving a 
wheelbarrow, for exercise, through Evelyn's holly hedge, 
while he and his followers left the house in such a condi- 
tion that it had to be completely refurnished. 

The history of Kidd, the pirate, belongs to this period. 

In the four years of quiet which followed the Peace of 
Ryswick, William was not without annoyances at home. 
It was hard for him to steer between the two political 
parties. The whigs, who had made him king, wished to 
limit his power; the tories were more to his taste, but 
many of them were Jacobites. With all his moderation 
and good sense he was still a Stuart, and would have 
preferred absolute rule if it had been possible to him. 
The Commons thwarted and opposed him at every turn, 
insisting upon cutting down the army contrary to his 
judgment, and a serious break might have resulted but 
for an event for which not even the most far-seeing Eng- 
lishmen were prepared. On the death of James II. at 
St. Germains (1701), Louis XIV. surprised the world by 
acknowledging his son, a boy of thirteen, as James III., 
king of England. 

There was no question now of peace. The army was 
instantly increased again and put on an efficient footing. 
A Grand Alliance was formed by Germany, England, and 
Holland, against Louis XIV., partly in consequence of 
his claiming the throne of Spain for his grandson, Philip, 
which led to the War of the Spanish Succession, while 
England had her special grievance in the insult offered 
to her by the breaking of the Treaty of Ryswick. 

Before any active military operations could be begun, 
William, whose health had long been failing, met with an 



DEATHS OF MARY AND WILLIAM III. 329 

accident which ended his life. While he was riding in 
the park his horse stumbled over a mole -hill, and he 
fell off and broke his collar-bone. Being already very- 
feeble he could not rally from the injury, and died after 
a few days of suffering, in the fifty-second year of his age 
and the fourteenth of his reign. 

For an estimate of William's character, we may take 
that of Prince Albert, the lamented husband of Queen 
Victoria, who said, in a meeting of the Society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel, "This society was first char- 
tered by that great man, William the Third — the greatest 
sovereign this country has to boast of." 

One conspicuous feature in the advance of the English 
people from ignorance toward knowledge, from brutality 
toward humanity, from darkness toward light, is the rise, 
progress, and decline of the witchcraft delusion and per- 
secution. It began a little before the time of the dis- 
covery of America, reached its height about 1692 (the 
date of the tragedy in Salem, Massachusetts), and ex- 
hausted itself ten years later in England, when the last 
execution took place in that country (1702). In 1484, 
the pope issued a bill commanding the Inquisition to 
hunt up and kill all witches. In four years, 600 persons 
were burned or hanged in the bishopric of Bamberg, 
and 900 in that of Wurzberg. Five hundred persons were 
burned in Geneva during four months of 1576, and 1000 
in the district of Como in 1524. In 1562, a statute of 
Elizabeth made witchcraft or sorcery a capital crime, and 
James I. himself wrote a treatise upon it. During the 
Long Parliament, 3000 persons are said to have been 
put to death. The cruelties which fill us with horror in 
the history of our own country are few in comparison 



330 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

with this fearful list. Even in England, the madness had 
small sway compared to its ravages in Continental 
Europe (where it numbered its victims by the hundred 
thousand), while our own land escaped with only a 
scorching. And all this for a crime which no one ever 
did or could commit, for it had no existence. 

After being for years a dead letter, the laws against 
witchcraft were repealed by Parliament in 1736, though 
in some European countries they have existed to within 
the nineteenth century. 




CHAPTER XL II. 

ANNE. ACT OF SETTLEMENT. WAR OF THE SPANISH 
SUCCESSION. UNION WITH SCOTLAND. DEATH. 

HEN it became plain that William III.'s days 
were numbered, Parliament was obliged once 
more to take up the question of the succession. 
The Princess Anne's only child, the Duke of Gloucester, 
had just died, at eleven years of age, and no further pro- 
vision had been made. With the approbation of the 
king, it was decided that Sophia, the wife of the Elector 
of Hanover, and daughter of James I.'s daughter Eliza- 
beth, should be queen after Anne, if the latter should 
leave no children. The nearest relative in blood to 
Anne was, of course, her half-brother, James, son of 
James II. and Mary of Modena, but as he and all other 
possible candidates were Roman Catholics, they were 
out of the question. The Electress Sophia had remained 
a Protestant and was therefore eligible; and her son 



ANNE. UNION WITH SCOTLAND. 331 

George, now forty years old, would become king at her 
death. 

At the same time with the Act of Settlement, it was 
provided that every future sovereign must be a member 
of the Church of England. This put an end to all com- 
plications regarding Roman Catholics. 

These arrangements having been made, Anne, the 
sixth and last of the Stuarts (for William and Mary al- 
ways count as one), became queen (1702). She was 
then thirty-eight years old. The Duke of Marlborough 
and his wife continued to be her intimate friends and 
advisers; and, the tories being somewhat in the ascend- 
ant in the new Parliament, a tory ministry was formed, 
which immediately declared war against France and 
Spain. The struggle thus entered upon is known by the 
name of "The War of the Spanish Succession." 

Charles II., King of Spain, who had been in failing 
health for many years, had died in 1700, leaving no 
children. His eldest sister had married Louis XIV. of 
France, the latter promising at the same time that the 
throne of Spain should never be claimed for herself or 
her descendants. Louis now brought forward a demand 
that it should be bestowed on his grandson, Philip of 
Anjou, on the ground that, as his queen's dowry had 
not been paid, he was not bound by his part of the con- 
tract. The Emperor of Germany, who had married the 
younger sister, brought forward a similar claim for his 
grandson. England took the side of the emperor, and 
the war began. 

Marlborough opened the campaign in Flanders, where 
he took several towns; Admiral Rooke conquered the 
world-famed fortress of Gibraltar (1704), which England 



332 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

still holds; and between 1704 and 1709, Marlborough 
won the great victories of Blenheim, Oudenarde, Ram- 
illies and Malplaquet, in Germany and Flanders. Blen- 
heim was the first great battle gained by the English on 
foreign soil since Agincourt (141 5). .Prince Eugene of 
Savoy, second only to Marlborough as a general, led the 
German armies which cooperated with the English in 
these famous engagements. He also won, alone, a 
splendid victory at Turin in Sardinia, by which he drove 
the French out of Italy. After Marlborough's first great 
success, the English were wild with joy, and heaped 
honors upon him. He already had a pension for life, 
and in addition to this and to the thanks of the queen 
and Parliament, the nation gave him the royal manor of 
Woodstock, and at a later time erected upon it the 
superb mansion called Blenheim House, which is still 
one of England's palaces. 

The next year (1705) was distinguished by a bril- 
liant campaign in Spain, the land forces being under 
the Earl of Peterborough, and the fleet under Sir 
Cloudesly Shovel, an admiral who had worked his way 
up from the position of cabin-boy. As he was returning 
from his second campaign in Spain, the admiral's ship 
was wrecked off the Scilly Islands, and all on board 
perished (1707). 

The same year saw the long-talked-of "union" between 
England and Scotland. From the time of James I. 
they had been two countries under one king, having 
separate Parliaments and laws. It was now agreed, in. 
spite of intense opposition from the minority in Scotland, 
that thereafter the Scottish Parliament should be given 
up, and that the country should be represented by 



ANNE. UNION WITH SCOTLAND. 333 

sixteen peers in the English House of Lords, and by 
forty -five members in the Commons. This measure, 
affecting a people so tenacious of their independence, 
caused riots in Edinburgh; but after the union had been 
fully tried, all classes joined in approving it. 

When the queen gave her assent to the Act of Union, 
she added, "I desire and expect from my subjects of 
both nations, that from henceforth they act with all pos- 
sible respect and kindness to one another, that so it may 
appear to all the world they have hearts disposed to 
become one people." These are noble words, and they 
have been nobly acted upon. From this time the for- 
mal designation of the whole country has been "The 
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland." 

After the successes of the combined English and Ger- 
man armies, Louis XIV., whose country was almost ex- 
hausted, made proposals for a peace. The allies, how- 
ever, flushed with victory, demanded such terms as 
he could not grant consistently with his self-respect, 
and preparations were made for continuing the war. 

The trial of Doctor Sacheverell, a clergyman of the 
Church of England, for a political offence, is worth notic- 
ing as characteristic of the times. He was an advocate 
of non-resistance to royal power; and having preached 
two intemperate sermons on the subject, the Parliament, 
in which the whigs were now in power, impeached and 
tried him for sedition. The populace took up his cause 
as their own. He was escorted every day from his lodg- 
ings to Westminster Hall by crowds of people, and sev- 
eral dissenting meeting-houses were pulled down by the 
mob in their fury. When a sentence of suspension from 
preaching for three years was passed on Sacheverell, 



334 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

instead of the severer penalty, their joy was boundless, as 
he was considered the champion of the established 
church. The feeling was so strong against the whigs 
that the queen was obliged to change her ministers, and 
in the next Parliament (1710) the tories were again in 
the majority. 

The long intimacy between the queen and the Duke 
and Duchess of Marlborough was now drawing to an 
end. The Duchess Sarah, a domineering woman who 
had by her force of character completely governed the 
queen, grew so intolerably insolent that even the patient 
Anne ("a crowned slave," she called herself) could en- 
dure it no longer. In the early days of their friendship, 
while Anne was still a princess, she herself had suggested 
that all ceremony should be dropped between her and 
her darling friend, and that they should write to one an- 
other (which they did constantly) under feigned names. 
Anne chose the name of "Mrs. Morley," and Lady Marl- 
borough (it was before she became a Duchess) that of 
"Mrs. Freeman," as being suited to her character. But 
all their fondness had passed away, and the queen's one 
desire was to get rid of her ex-favorite. Abigail Hill,, 
afterward Mrs. Masham, a relative of the duchess, whom 
the latter had placed with Anne to get rid of some oi 
her own duties as mistress of the robes, gradually sup- 
planted her in the queen's good graces, and the duke and. 
duchess were deprived of their places in her household. 
Marlborough's political enemies, too, were stirring against 
him (he was at this time a whig), and the tories procured 
his disgrace, had him recalled from the Continent (where 
he was planning another campaign that should rival that. 
of Malplaquet) and dismissed him from all his employ- 



ANNE. UNION WITH SCOTLAND. 335 

ments. They accused him of cheating the government, 
which he had undoubtedly done, for his avarice was as 
great as his passion for military glory and he hesitated 
at no baseness to gratify it. Upon one occasion, when 
Prince Eugene was visiting London, the crowd thought 
he was in a certain sedan-chair in Hyde Park, and began 
cheering; but when they saw that the person was Marl- 
borough they changed their hurrahs to "stop thief!" 

The Marlboroughs had received, honestly, from the 
queen and the parliament, grants amounting to the value 
of at least five millions of dollars; but they were always 
wanting more. One gift their descendants are probably 
still enjoying — a pension of ^5000 a year settled upon 
themselves and their heirs forever. The duke was a re- 
markably handsome man, and had manners of such won- 
derful grace and courtesy that they fascinated all who 
met him. His ability as a soldier has somewhat over- 
shadowed his gifts as a statesman; but he was remark- 
able in both. All that he needed to make him truly 
glorious was a conscience and a heart. 

After Marlborough's recall, the war dragged slowly on 
until it was ended by the peace of Utrecht (1713). 
Louis XIV. had so far gained his point that Spain and 
the West Indies were left in possession of his grandson, 
Philip V.; Anne was recognized as queen of Great Brit- 
ain; England was to keep Gibraltar and Minorca (one of 
the Balearic Islands gained during the war) and received 
in addition the Island of Newfoundland in North Amer- 
ica, together with Acadia (Nova Scotia), and a tract of 
land about Hudson Bay. This war is known in Ameri- 
can history as "Queen Anne's War," and is only a repe- 
tition of the horrors of Indian massacre. The town of 



336 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Deerfield, in Massachusetts, was destroyed, and more 
than a hundred persons carried away prisoners. An 
additional article of the treaty gave to Great Britain the 
right, formerly possessed by the French, of importing 
annually for thirty years nearly five thousand negro slaves 
to America. Shameful to relate, this was the article of 
the treaty most urgently insisted on.* 

Queen Anne died the year after the Peace of Utrecht, 
aged fifty years, after a reign of twelve years. Her death 
was undoubtedly hastened by the continual brawling of 
her ministers and Parliament. She dreaded a meeting 
of her cabinet, and it was while trembling in anticipation 
of one of these stormy sessions that the fit of apoplexy 
came on which ended her life. Her husband, Prince 
George of Denmark, had died some years earlier. 

As a queen, Anne had little opportunity to show per- 
sonal character, owing to the changed system of govern- 
ment in her day, for now Parliament was supreme. From 
that time, the saying is true that "the monarch reigns but 
does not govern." As a woman, she seems to have com- 
manded both respect and affection. She was very gen- 
erous, not only to her favorites, but to others who needed 
help; and "Queen Anne's Bounty," a fund for poor 
clergymen, given from her own perquisites, still keeps 
her memory green. She was the last sovereign of Eng- 

* It was after the peace of Utrecht that the expatriation of the 
French colonists in Acadia (Nova Scotia) took place, celebrated in 
Longfellow's " Evangeline. " Against their will they were removed 
to other parts of the country, the larger part of them settling in 
what is now Western Louisiana, where to this day they retain their 
language (now greatly corrupted) and, to a large extent, their 
ancient customs, habits, and dress. 



ANNE. UNION WITH SCOTLAND. 337 

land to touch for the "King's Evil," as Edward the Con- 
fessor was the first; and the great Doctor Johnson faintly 
remembered being taken to a tall lady in a black velvet 
gown and a hood, whose magic touch, it was hoped, 
would remove the curse of scrofula. 

The most brilliant statesmen of Queen Anne's reign 
were Harley (Lord Oxford) and St. John (Lord Boling- 
broke). In science there w T as Sir Isaac Newton, whom 
Queen Anne had the honor of knighting; Pope was just 
beginning to be known as a poet, and Addison and Steele 
were busy with the "Spectator." The industrious Defoe 
had not yet written "Robinson Crusoe," nor had Dean 
Swift begun "Gulliver's Travels." The reign of Anne is 
regarded, next to Queen Elizabeth's and Queen Vic- 
toria's, as being the most brilliant period of our English 
literature. 

The Electress Sophia of Hanover, who by the Act of 
Settlement was appointed the next in succession, died 
about ten days before the queen. 



CHAPTER XLII1. 

GEORGE I. INVASION OF THE PRETENDER. SOUTH-SEA 
BUBBLE. DEATH OF THE KING. GEORGE II. 

EORGE I., Elector of Hanover and son of 
Sophia, was now king of England (17 14). The 
people only half- liked the idea of receiving 
a German prince who could not speak English* and was 

* He was obliged to speak with one of his ministers, Sir Robert 
"VValpole, in Latin, as he knew no English and the Premier no 
German. 

22 




338 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

___ , * — 

too old to learn (he was fifty -four), but anything was 
better than a Roman-Catholic Stuart. At first sight the 
English were prejudiced against him. He was awkward 
and undignified in appearance and uncultivated in mind, 
so that he seemed ill-fitted to come into a court which 
was one of the most witty and graceful in Europe. 
George I., however, had so many good qualities that he 
soon won the approval, though never the affection, of his. 
subjects. He was truthful, business like, and just, and 
perhaps it was fortunate for Engand that his interest was- 
largely in Hanover, so that he left his new kingdom to 
govern itself through its representatives. The family of 
Hanover, to which the Georges belonged, is often called 
the "House of Brunswick," the Electors of Hanover 
being at that time also Dukes of Brunswick. 

George I. has left an amusing account of English 
customs in a letter written by him at this time. "This 
is a strange country," he says. "The morning after my 
arrival at St. James's, I looked out of the windo« and 
saw a park which they said was mine. The next day,. 
Lord Chetwynd sent me a fine brace of carp out of my 
own canal; and I was told I must give five guineas to his 
servant for bringing me my own carp out of my own 
canal in my own park." The king was very economical,, 
and would rather have bought his carp in the market at 
a much lower price. 

"The tory party is gone," wrote Lord Bolingbroke 
after Queen Anne's death. George I. at once formed 
a whig ministry of which Lord Townshend was the 
head. The whigs began impeaching several of the most 
noted of Anne's ministers, among them Lords Oxford 
and Bolingbroke and the Duke of Ormond; but as the 



GEORGE I DEA TH. GEORGE II 339 

accusation was dictated only by party spite, nothing fur- 
ther came of it. Marlborough was reinstated in his 
position as captain-general of the forces. It was neces- 
sary, however, to keep a close watch upon him, as he 
was soon found to be in correspondence with the Pre- 
tender,* or, as he was more often called, the Chevalier 
of St. George. The latter lost no time in sending forth 
a manifesto asserting his right to the English crown, and 
the old struggle began once more, his friends in Scotland 
exciting an insurrection there in his favor. 

Louis XIV. of France died in 171 5, and the Preten- 
der, who had looked for aid from him, was disappointed 
in his hopes. The Regent Orleans refused any open 
assistance, not wishing to go to war with England, and 
James was obliged to depend on his Scottish friends. 
The Earl of Mar, with some others, raised a force of five 
thousand men for his support, and was joined by the 
Duke of Ormond, one of the dismissed English tory 
leaders. The campaign was very ill-planned. Part of 
the army, under Mar, was defeated at Sheriff-Muir, near 
Stirling, by Argyle; another part, marching southward 
under command of a Mr. Forster, surrendered at Preston 
in Lancashire. These two defeats put an end to the 
Pretender's hopes in Scotland (17 15). James Stuart 
himself was a most unsuitable person to be the centre 
of a rebellion. He was haggard and melancholy look- 
ing and so silent that some of the soldiers tauntingly 
asked whether he could speak; he was tame and spirit- 
less, and when he did talk, it was to complain of his 
misfortunes. Abandoning his followers, he sailed se- 

* The son of James II. "Pretender" in this sense means a 
claimant; not an impostor. 



340 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

cretly with Mar for Paris, while many of his adherents 
were taken and executed. Lord Derwentwater and 
Lord Kenmure were beheaded on Tower Hill, while 
Lord Nithisdale escaped by changing clothes with his 
wife in the prison. After this, England had rest from 
the Pretender for thirty years. The regent of France 
allied himself with England, and James was obliged to 
seek an asylum elsewhere. He married the grand-daugh- 
ter of John Sobieski, the late king of Poland, and thence- 
forward lived mainly in Rome. 

An important law called the "Septennial Act" was 
passed by Parliament in the following year (171 6). By 
this, the same Parliament was allowed to sit for seven 
years, though always retaining its right to dissolve itself 
at pleasure. 

A bill had been passed in Queen Anne's reign forbid- 
ding the sovereign of England to leave the country with- 
out consent of Parliament. It was now repealed, leaving 
George I. free to go to his own dominions of Hanover 
whenever he pleased. His oldest son, George, Prince of 
Wales, was left in charge of the kingdom, though without 
the title of Regent, as he was not on good terms with 
his father. 

During the premiership of Lord Stanhope, successor 
to Lord Townshend, England drifted into a war with 
Spain, brought about through a quarrel between Han- 
over and Charles XII. of Sweden on account of some 
disputed territory. To annoy the Elector, Charles agreed 
with Cardinal Alberoni, the Spanish minister, to proclaim 
James Stuart as James III. of England, which was done 
in Madrid, the Pretender having gone there for the 
purpose. 



GEORGE I. DEATH. GEORGE II. 341 

Holland and France now entered into an alliance with 
England against Spain, and this being afterward joined 
by the emperor, is known by the name of the Quadruple 
Alliance. The death of Charles XII. (171 8), and the 
defeat of the Spanish fleet by Admiral Byng (1719), put 
an end to the war. 

The event occupying most attention in England in this 
reign, was the famous South -Sea Bubble* — an attempt 
to pay off the national debt, which now amounted to 
^53,000,000, by means of a stock company organized 
to trade with the Spaniards in South America (17 17). 
The government gave its sanction to the scheme by 
allowing its stock to be exchanged for the Company's 
stock. Speculation ran wild; the stock rose to 900 per 
cent. A similiar scheme, originated by John Law, was 
at the same time running the same mad career in Paris ; 
and the thrill of it even reached America, and was felt in 
Kaskaskia and Fort Chartres in Illinois, as well as in 
New Orleans. At last the bubble burst; the stock could 
no longer be sold at any price, and many of those who 
had invested their all in it were ruined. The king and 
the ministry were severely blamed for the countenance 
they had given to this unfortunate mania. Lord Stan- 
hope, the premier, fell a victim to the excitement. Being 
violently attacked on the subject in Parliament, and de- 
fending himself with equal vehemence, he was seized 
with a fit of apoplexy and died on the following day 
(17 21). For the next twenty- one years, the real head of 
the government was Sir Robert Walpole. 

Walpole's policy was one of peace. He said, "The 

*The Southern Atlantic Ocean was then often called "The South 
Sea" as the Caribbean Sea was called "The Spanish Main." 



342 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

most pernicious circumstances in which this country can 
be, are those of war; as we must be losers while it lasts 
and can not be great gainers when it ends." He was 
equally a lover of quiet at home. His aim was to avoid 
everything that would lead to variance, and to conduct 
all affairs with the least possible friction. He is charged 
with saying, in actions if not in words, "Every man has 
his price," not always in money, but in something which 
the man warns; and he did not scruple to employ bribery 
to accomplish his ends. Such an administration can 
have but little history. 

Some disturbance took place in Ireland which, under 
a less skilful minister, might have led to an insurrection. 
As small coin there was exceedingly scarce, a contract 
was granted to a man named Wood to coin half-pence 
and farthings to a certain amount, his profit to come 
from the labor employed on them. The Irish, excited 
by factious politicians, were furious at this measure, 
which they fancied was intended in some way to impose 
upon them. Their anger was increased by a series of let- 
ters signed M. B. Drapier, written for political purposes 
by the celebrated Dean Swift; and although the gov- 
ernment had Wood's half-pence tested, and found them 
fully up to the standard, the unreasoning rage of the 
people was so great that Walpole thought it best to 
annul the contract, giving Wood a compensation in 
money. 

George I., like William III., was more attached to his 
native country than to England, and made frequent visits 
there. On one of his journeys, he was attacked with 
apoplexy, while in his traveling-carriage, and, refusing 
to stop on the road, was taken to his brother's palace at 



GEORGE I DEATH. GEORGE II. 343 

Osnabriick. When the carriage reached its destination, 
King George was dead. His wife, Sophia Dorothea of 
Zell, had never been in England. This unfortunate lady 
had been for nearly twenty years a prisoner, on account 
•of conduct which may have been nothing more than 
imprudent. She died a few months before her husband, 
and a story was long current that a paper had been 
thrown into his carriage, purporting to be a letter from 
her, summoning him to meet her within a year and a 
■day. The shock of this, it is said, brought on the apo- 
plexy which ended his life. 

George II. was taking his afternoon nap when Sir 
Robert Walpole, booted and spurred from a hasty ride, 
■came into the room and insisted on waking his majesty 
to tell him the news. The new king did not believe it 
at first, and when he was at last made to understand the 
fact, the minister asked his wishes in regard to summon- 
ing a council. "Go and get your directions from Sir 
Spencer Compton," answered the king, bluntly, the in- 
ference being that he meant to select the person named, 
as his prime minister. Sir Spencer Compton, who had 
been the prince's treasurer during George III.'s lifetime, 
was a dull, plodding man, always ready to do his best, 
but with no genius for government. He had not the 
faintest idea of what he ought to do, and asked Sir Rob- 
ert to write a speech for him to give to the king to read 
in the Council. The ex-premier readily did this, and 
the new one took it to the king. The latter made some 
objection to it, and Sir Spencer was obliged to have re- 
course to Walpole again, for he did not know how to 
alter the document. Queen Caroline, George II.'s wife, 
a handsome woman of great wit and spirit, observed to 



344 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

her husband that it was a pity to choose a man for min- 
ister in whose own judgment his predecessor was the 
fittest person to perform the duties of the office; and as 
the king was ruled by her in everything, Sir Robert was 
soon reinstated. The latter and the queen remained 
firm friends, and really governed the country between 
them; while they managed the ignorant little king so 
well that he thought all the while he was doing it himself. 

George II. was now forty-four years old. He could 
speak English fluently, though he did it incorrectly and 
with a vulgar accent. He had a violent temper, but 
possessed the manly virtues of courage and a love of 
justice. 

In 1732 (the year of George Washington's birth). 
General James Oglethorpe procured a patent from the 
king for colonizing a strip of country in North America, 
between the Savannah River and the northern boundary 
of Florida, the latter country belonging to Spain. His 
object was to found an asylum for imprisoned debtors*" 
and other helpless poor, where they might, by thrift, 
retrieve their fortunes. The expedition left England the 
next year (1733), and the territory, named Georgia in 
honor of King George II. , was the last settled of the 
thirteen English colonies in America. 

*The cruelties inflicted upon debtors in the Fleet and Marshalsea 
prisons are almost beyond belief, and we could not credit them but 
that they were proved by government investigation. 




WAR WITH SPAIN. YOUNG PRETENDER. 345 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

WAR WITH SPAIN. AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION. YOUNG 
PRETENDER. QUEBEC. 

HE Spaniards had been from the first jealous of 
the new settlement of Georgia, which they 
thought would interfere with their trade, and 
they began to search English ships for prohibited goods, 
as the English themselves after the Revolution searched 
ours for British sailors. A story told by a man named 
Jenkins increased the popular ill-feeling. He said that 
a Spanish vessel overhauled his schooner, and the cap- 
tain, not finding anything contraband, tortured him in 
various ways to make him tell what he had hidden 
away, and finally tore off his ear and gave it to him, 
saying that he would have served the king just so if he 
had caught him. Jenkins carried the ear about with 
him, wrapped in cotton, and although some persons 
believed that he had lost it in the pillory, the assertion 
helped to increase the anger against Spain. The war 
was carried on mostly by the navy. Admiral Vernon 
took Porto Bello, on the Isthmus of Darien, while Com- 
modore Anson captured many prizes at sea, and in the 
course of his voyage sailed around the globe (1740-4). 

While this war was going on, England became engaged 
in another, contrary to the advice and wishes of Sir 
Robert Walpole, who in consequence resigned his office 
(1742). Queen Caroline had died five years before. 
The country had grown rich and prosperous under Wal- 
pole's peaceful administration, and the king parted from 



546 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

him with sincere regret, creating him at the same time 
Earl of Orford. 

The new quarrel was called "The War of.the Austrian 
Succession," and turned on the question whether or not 
Maria Theresa, the daughter of the late emperor Charles 
VI., should reign over his hereditary dominions of 
Austria and Hungary. He had provided for this, as he 
thought, by an agreement called the "Pragmatic Sanc- 
tion," which had been signed by the chief powers in 
Europe; but Louis XV. of France, disregarding this 
promise, supported the Elector of Bavaria as successor 
to Charles VI., and was joined by Frederic II. of Prussia 
(Frederic the Great), who began his aggressions by taking 
from Maria Theresa the province of Silesia. England 
sided with Austria, and as the Hungarian queen pacified 
Frederic II. by giving up her claim to Silesia, the latter 
retired from the war, leaving England and Austria to 
fight it out with France and Bavaria. The French were 
defeated by George II. at the battle of Dettingen, the 
last at which an English king ever fought in person. 
King George, however, showed such partiality for his 
Hanoverian troops and officers, that he lost favor with 
the English, and the cry "No Hanoverian king!"* began 

* The people had previously objected to his spending so much 
time in Hanover, and during one of his absences the following 
notice was stuck up on the gate of St. James's Palace: "Lost or 
strayed out of this house, a man who has left a wife and six children, 
on the parish. Whoever will give any tidings of him shall receive 
four shillings and sixpence reward. N.B. — This reward will not be 
increased, nobody judging him to deserve a Crown. " ( The Eng- 
lish "crown" is a coin worth five shillings). A popular caricature 
represented the Hanoverian White Horse, in a cocked hat and 
jack-boots, riding the British Lion. 



WAR WITH SPAIN. YOUNG PRETENDER. 347 

to be frequently heard. Two years afterward, the king's 
•second son, the Duke of Cumberland, was defeated by 
the French under Marshal Saxe in the battle of Fontenoy 
(1745). He was recalled to England on account of a 
new danger. France once more took up the cause of 
the exiled Stuarts, and another Jacobite invasion was 
planned, this time to be led by Prince Charles Edward, 
son of the Old Pretender. The latter was still living, 
t>ut was more spiritless than ever, and it was thought 
that his son, now twenty-five years old, would have better 
success in rallying the friends of the cause. Charles 
Edward sailed for Scotland with a few followers, and on 
his arrival there was joined by several Highland chief- 
tains, among whom was the celebrated Cameron of 
LochieL* The "Young Chevalier," as his friends loved 
to call him, was the very reverse of his father. Well 
formed and extremely handsome, with fair hair which 
curled in natural ringlets, and the blue eyes of the Saxon, 
he had, in addition to these gifts of appearance, a manner 
winning though dignified, and a romantic sense of honor. 
The more prudent among the Scots felt that he was 
destined to fail, and hesitated to join him; but he moved 
resolutely on with such forces as he could command, 
and at first met with brilliant success. He took several 
towns, and caused his father to be proclaimed at Edin- 
burgh under the name of James VIII. of Scotland. He 
also gained a victory over Sir John Cope at Preston 
Pans, after which the Highlanders left him and went 
home with their booty, and he spent some time in recruit- 
ing his army. Having collected what he thought a suffi- 
cient force, he invaded England, marching as far south- 

* See Campbell's poem, "Lochiel's Warning." 



348 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ward as Derby. Here the Scottish army insisted on 
retreating, alleging that there had been neither an Eng- 
lish uprising nor an invasion from France, on both of 
which they had counted; and the prince, after trying in 
vain both entreaties and threats, was obliged to return 
with them to Scotland. 

The English were at last aroused to a sense of their 
danger, and sent a force to Scotland under the Duke of 
Cumberland (son of George II.) which met that of the 
Young Pretender on Culloden Moor, near Inverness,, 
and inflicted on it a crushing defeat (1746).* Charles 
Edward escaped, and remained in concealment for five 
months; and though a reward of ^30,000 was set upon 
his head, and several hundred persons knew of his hiding 
places, he reached France in safety. One of those who 
took care of him in his concealment was Flora Macdon- 
ald, celebrated in Sir Walter Scott's novel of "Waverley,"' 
under the name of Flora Maclvor. (She is said to have 
come to America, and to have died in North Carolina, 
within this century.) 

The Duke of Cumberland stained his military reputa- 
tion by the most revolting cruelty after the battle of Cul- 
loden. He had his prisoners shot in cold blood, and 
allowed his soldiers such inhuman license that he was 
long remembered in Scotland under the title of "The 

* The romantic aspect of this uprising in the view of the Jacob- 
ites may be judged from this stanza of a popular song, "The Scottish 
Cavalier : " 

He was the first to draw the sword when the standard waved abroad s 
He was the first to charge the foe on Preston's bloody sod: 
And ever in the van of fight the foremost still he trod, 
Until on bleak Culloden's height he gave his soul to God: 
Like a fine old Scottish Cavalier, all of the olden time. 



WAR WITH SPAIN. YOUAG PRETENDER. 349 

Butcher." When he returned to London, however, there 
was nothing but praise for him; he received a pension 
of ^40,000 a year, in addition to his other revenues, 
and the thanks of numerous bodies of citizens. Such of 
the unhappy participants in the rebellion as had escaped 
"The Butcher" were speedily brought to trial, and about 
eighty of them, including Lords Kilmarnock, Balmerino, 
and Lovat, were executed with all the barbarities of the 
usual sentence for high-treason (1746). 

The future fortunes of Charles Edward, "The Young 
Chevalier," were not in harmony with this beginning. 
Being obliged to leave France, he wandered from place 
to place, becoming constantly more dissipated and 
disreputable. He was married to the Countess Louise 
von Stolberg, whom he treated so ill that she wss 
obliged to separate from him, and at last he closed his 
discreditable life in Italy, a poor, despised drunkard. 
His brother Henry entered the Romish Church, was 
created by the pope, Cardinal York, and died at Rome 
a very old man, in 1807. With him ended the male 
line of the Stuarts. 

As usually happened when there was war going on in 
Europe between France and England, a "sympathetic" 
war took place between the French and English colonies 
in America. The one which corresponded to the War 
of the Austrian Succession was called here "Kins 
George's War." Its main incident was the taking 
^1745), by a few regiments of New-England militia 
under Governor Shirley, of the fortress of Louisburg, 
a place so strong that it was called "The Gibraltar of 
America." The Peace of Aix la Chapelle (1748) closed 
the war, and all conquered places were returned. The 



350 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

indignation of the New Englanders at having the for- 
tress of Louisburg, which they had purchased with their 
blood and treasure, taken away from them by a stroke 
of the pen, was so great that the day of its surrender 
was called "a black day," not to be named without a 
feeling of disgrace. 

England had now another breathing-spell of peace. 
After the retirement of Sir Robert Walpole, the most 
prominent names among English statesmen are those of 
William Pitt (afterward the great Lord Chatham) and 
Lord Chesterfield. The latter introduced in Parliament 
one of the most important bills of the century — namely, 
that of the reformation of the calendar. Until the 
sixteenth century, the calendar prepared by order of 
Julius Caesar, called the "Julian year," had been every- 
where used. Pope Gregory XIII., knowing that it was 
ten days out of the way, had reformed this (1582), and 
the new reckoning had been accepted by all Continental 
Europe except Russia and Sweden. By the middle of 
the eighteenth century, the error had grown to eleven 
days, and it was arranged in England that the second 
day of September, 1752, was to be counted as the 
fourteenth,* in order to bring the calendar into harmony 
with the correct time. The lower classes of people, 
thinking that they had been cheated, thronged the 
streets crying out, "Give us back our eleven days!" and 
threatening violence, but were pacified without blood- 
shed. By the same Act of Parliament, the beginning of 
the legal year was changed from April 25 to January 1. 
Sweden followed the example of England the next year,. 

* This seems to make a change of twelve days instead of eleven. 



WAR WITH SPAIN. YOUNG PRETENDER. 351 

while in Russia the old style, now twelve days out of 
date, is still in use. 

The American colonies, during all this time, had 
been gradually increasing in importance and prosperity, 
and in 1754, a convention of delegates met at Albany to 
consider a plan proposed by Dr. Benjamin Franklin of 
Pennsylvania, for a union of the thirteen colonies for 
mutual protection and defence. The plan was adopted 
by the convention and submitted to the colonial assem- 
blies and to the British cabinet. It met with the usual 
fate of moderate measures; the colonies refused it 
because it left too much in the power of the king; the 
English government would not sanction it because it 
was too democratic. So the first effort at American 
union fell to the ground. 

In the same year (1754), hostilities began between the 
French and English on this side of the Atlantic. The 
latter had made some settlements on the Ohio River; 
and as the French claimed all this part of the country, 
they resented the intrusion, and interfered with the 
settlers. General Braddock, who was sent from Eng- 
land to the assistance of the colonists, was surprised 
and defeated by the French and Indians near Fort du 
Quesne, in Pennsylvania (1755), where the British 
troops were saved from destruction only by the skill of 
George Washington, then a major of Virginia volunteers. 
The war dragged on for some years longer, there being 
no efficient commanders on the side of the English 
until the ministry of William Pitt put new vigor into- 
the administration. Under General Amherst, Louisburg 
was retaken (1758) after a siege of seven weeks, and 
Fort du Quesne, being abandoned by the French, was 



352 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

occupied by General John Forbes, and named Fort Pitt, 
in honor of the statesman whose energetic measures had 
changed the course of the war. The fort fell into decay, 
but the city which grew up around it still keeps the 
name of Pittsburg. In the following year, the glorious 
victory of Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham, near 
Quebec, practically ended the war, though peace was 
not formally made until four years afterward. General 
Wolfe and the French commander, Montcalm, were 
both killed in the action. 

The island of Minorca, it will be remembered, had 
been ceded to the English by the Treaty of Utrecht. 
Although there had been no declaration of war between 
France and England, the English had since made some 
piratical attacks on French vessels. In retaliation for 
this, the French attacked Port Mahon, in Minorca, which 
Admiral Byng had orders to defend. He sailed to this 
place, but thinking the French fleet superior to his own, 
resolved not to attack it, and left the island to its fate. 
The fort surrendered (1756) after making the best 
defence it could. The popular clamor against Byng 
was so violent that he was tried by court-martial and 
shot on the quarter-deck of his ship. 

Among the influences now affecting the great body 
of Englishmen, who cared little for the foreign wars 
which brought them no profit and but a faint impression 
of sharing in the national glory, was the new impulse 
given to the religious life of the people by the preaching 
of John Wesley. He was afterward joined by his 
brother Charles and by George Whitefield, and both in 
England and America they tried to arouse a more 
earnest and personal interest in religion. They wished 



WAR WITH SPAIN. YOUNG PRETENDER. 353 

to raise it from dead formality to a true spiritual life; 
and when they were not allowed the use of churches in 
which to address their followers and fellow-laborers, 
they held meetings in the open air, where thousands at 
a time were brought under the spell of their eloquence. 
The poorer classes, especially, yielded eagerly to the 
amotions inspired by their fervor, and an electric thrill 
seemed to run through the nation. Wesley himself had 
no intention of separating from the Church of England; 
"but his successors developed his plan for an organized 
religious life into the great movement now known as 
Methodism. 



CHAPTER XLV. 

SEVEN-YEARS' WAR. INDIA. DEATH OF GEORGE II. 
STAMP ACT. LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 

*rp!3B IGHT years after the Peace of Aix la Cha- 
fe i^ii pelle, France and Austria leagued together 
' 1 1' ■ "" l for the destruction of Prussia, against which 
each had some grievances. Russia, Saxony, and Sweden 
afterward joined this alliance. Frederic II., king of 
Prussia, having had private notice of their intentions, 
did not wait to be attacked, but acted on the offensive 
by seizing Dresden, the capital of Saxony. This was 
the beginning of what was afterward known as the 
Seven-Years' War (1756-63). 

In such a condition of affairs, England naturally took 
part with Prussia. It was not only to preserve the bal- 
ance of power and because the kings of the two coun- 
23 



354. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

tries were own cousins that she did so, but because the 
king was in danger of losing his electorate of Hanover. 
The Duke of Cumberland was sent for the defence of 
that country, but the French, entering it with a large 
army, compelled him to retreat and to sign the "Con- 
vention of Kloster- Seven" (1757), by which he agreed 
practically to disband his army. When the duke re- 
turned to England, his father treated him so coldly that 
he gave up all his employments and retired in disgust 
to private life. 

In addition to her wars on the Continent and in 
America, England was carrying on a vigorous contest in, 
India. That country was still largely under the control 
of native rulers, with whom the French allied themselves 
against the English. As early as 175 1, Robert Clive, a 
young man in the East-India Company's service, had 
entered the army, and now, with a mere handful of 
Englishmen and a few Sepoys, he attacked and took 
the town of Arcot from the French, and gradually ex- 
tended the English rule. In 1756 occurred the tragedy- 
of the "Black Hole" in Calcutta. The nabob Surajah 
Dowlah, who had long been jealous of the English, 
seized Fort William in Calcutta, and shut up one hun- 
dred and forty-six prisoners in a loathsome dungeon so- 
small that they could scarcely stand in it. Here he kept 
them through a hot August night. In the morning, after 
suffering untold torments, only twenty-three of them 
were left alive. The next year (1757) Clive, having, 
collected a small army of English and Sepoys, retook 
Calcutta, and later in the year fought the memorable 
battle of Plassey, where with three thousand men he 
defeated Surajah Dowlah's army of fifty thousand. 



INDIA. DEATH OF GEORGE II 355 

When he returned to England, having laid the founda- 
tion of a vast empire, the conqueror was raised to the 
peerage under the name of Lord Clive, Baron of Plas- 
sey. In the same year, the victory of Sir Eyre Coote 
drove the French out of Pondicherry, thus giving the 
British control over the whole of Southern India. 

In 1760, King George II. died suddenly, from a rup- 
ture of the heart. His son Frederic, Prince of Wales, 
had died nine years before, leaving a son who now be- 
came King of England as George III. The latter was 
at this time twenty-two years old, and was the first of 
the Georges who was born in England. 

George III. succeeded to the throne when England 
was at a high pitch of national pride and self-satisfac- 
tion. The victories of Wolfe in America and Clive in 
India contributed to this confidence ; and the nation felt 
safe under the administration of the "Great Commoner," 
William Pitt. The French, annoyed at their defeats, 
now entered into an alliance with Spain called the 
"Family Compact," the kings of both countries being 
Bourbons. As this bound Spain to take part with 
France against England, Pitt wished to be beforehand 
with her and declare war at once, thus taking her at a 
disadvantage; but the king refusing to do so, Pitt re- 
signed his office and was succeeded by Lord Bute (1761). 

In the same year, King George married Princess Char- 
lotte of Mecklenburg Strelitz, a girl of seventeen, plain- 
looking but sensible. His attention was attracted to 
her by reading a letter she wrote to Frederic the Great, 
asking him to spare her country the horrors of war. It 
was a simple little letter, such as any well-educated 
school-girl might write, but George III. thought it ad- 



356 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

mirable, and offered himself at once to the young prin- 
cess. The marriage was a very happy one and the king 
proved himself a good husband — something so rare in 
his family that it is worth noticing. 

Spain soon broke out into acts of open warfare, as 
Pitt had expected. The English captured the city of 
Havana in Cuba, and several of the smaller West- India 
Islands, besides taking Manilla, the capital of the Phil- 
ippines. Notwithstanding these successes, Lord Bute, 
alarmed at the increase of the national debt, which now 
amounted tO;£i32, 000,000, was anxious to make peace, 
and a treaty at Paris (1763) ended the Seven Years' 
War.* By this, France gave up the whole of Canada 
to the British, and tacitly renounced her right to the 
great Northwest Territory, which included within its limits 
the Great Lakes and the Upper Mississippi Valley, and 
the present states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, 
Wisconsin, and Minnesota. England gave back to Spain 
her recent conquests of Havana and Manilla, with sev- 
eral of the West-India Islands, receiving Florida in re- 
turn. The treaty was extremely displeasing to the 
English, on account of these concessions, and Lord 
Bute became the most unpopular man in the country. 
People contrasted his weak measures with the energy of 
Pitt; and, to the surprise of every one, he resigned his 
office (1763). He was succeeded by George Granville. 

Among the various ways in which the growing spirit 
of popular freedom showed itself was the desire for 
increased liberty of the press. A political paper called 
"The North Briton/' edited by John Wilkes, had long 

*The corresponding war in America (which, however, began 
there two years earlier) was* called the French and Indian War. 



INDIA. DEATH OF GEORGE II. 357 

been the vehicle for attacks on the government; and 
after an address of the king to Parliament in which he 
spoke of the peace as honorable to Great Britain, 
Wilkes published in his paper a violent attack on the 
minister, and, by implication, on the king. Wilkes was 
thrown into the Tower, but was released on account of 
his privilege as a member of Parliament. The Com- 
mons expelled him from his seat by a unanimous vote, 
and ordered his paper to be burnt by the hangman. 
He was reelected by his constituents and after re- 
peated expulsions, reelections, fines and imprisonments, 
he was at last allowed to take his seat, and remained a 
member of Parliament for many years, the original ques- 
tion being entirely dropped. This was taken as a 
vindication of the right of free utterance both in print- 
ing and speaking, and, this right having once been es- 
tablished, it has been impossible since that time ever 
to violate it. 

George III.'s policy differed in one respect from that 
of his two immediate predecessors. He was determined 
to govern. He was an honest man, though one of 
narrow views and an overwhelming idea of his personal 
prerogative. In the debates on the legality of Wilkes's 
arrest, General Conway, a distinguished officer and a 
fair-minded man, voted conscientiously against the gov- 
ernment; upon which the king insisted on his being 
instantly dismissed from the army. "In this question, I 
am personally concerned," he wrote to Grenville. "I am 
not to be neglected unpunished." 

But all ministerial and royal imprudences were thrown 
into the shade by GrenvihVs proposed bill for taxing the 
American Colonies. His excuse for this was that Eng- 



358 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

land had been at great expense for their defence in the 
French and Indian war, and that it was only right that 
they should bear their share of the burden. The tax 
took the form of a Stamp Act, requiring that all law 
documents should be written upon stamped paper, each 
sheet thus paying a duty to England.* 

The measure passed (1765) with little opposition. Pitt 
was absent when it was voted on; and the only strong 
remonstrance was contained in a spirited speech by 
Colonel Isaac Barre'. The character of this may be 
judged by a few extracts. Col. Barre' said, referring to 
the Americans, "They, planted by your care! No; 
your oppression planted them in America. . . . They, 
nourished by your indulgence! They grew by your 
neglect of them. . . . They, protected by your arms ! 
They have nobly taken up arms in your defence." 

In the colonies, however, the resistance to the Act 
was forcible and instantaneous. "No Taxation without 
Representation!" was the cry. In the Virginia House 
of Burgesses, Patrick Henry uttered his cutting invec- 
tives against it. In Massachusetts, James Otis poured 
forth the burning words which made John Adams, 
another of our great orators, characterize him as "a 
flame of fire." A general Congress met at New York in 

* Dr. Franklin had been sent to England by several of the colo- 
nies, when hints of the threatened taxation reached America, to use 
his influence against it. He writes to a friend at this time, "Depend 
upon it, I took every step in my power to prevent the passing of the 
Stamp Act. But the tide was too strong against us. We might as 
well have hindered the sun's setting . . . Frugality and industry 
will go a great way toward indemnifying us. Idleness and pride 
tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments. If we can get 
rid of the former we may easily bear the latter. " 



INDIA. DEATH OF GEORGE II. 359 

October, 1765, which put forth a declaration of rights, 
acknowledging allegiance to Great Britain, but protesting 
against illegal taxation and against the vexatious limita- 
tions which were imposed on trade by the navigation 
Jaws* and other similar enactments. A suggestion was 
made that the colonies should be asked to tax them- 
selves for the purpose of assisting the mother -country, 
and if this had been followed out, the amount raised 
would probably have been far in excess of what was ex- 
pected from the sale of stamps. No attention was paid 
to the proceedings of the Stamp-Act Congress, as it was 
called, and by the first of November, the day on which 
the law was to go into operation, there were no stamps 
to sell. The people of the colonies had destroyed them 
all; and the officers employed in their distribution were 
glad to get off with their lives. 

Among the orators who spoke in the English Parlia- 
ment against the Act was Edmund Burke, then as always,' 
the friend of liberty. It was in one of his speeches on 
this subject at a later time that he brought in his famous 
simile of shearing a wolf. A man was resolved to shear 
a wolf. "But have you considered the resistance, the 
difficulty, the danger of the attempt?" "No; I have 
considered nothing but the right. Man has the right of 
dominion over the beasts of the forest, and therefore, I 
will shear the wolf!" William Pitt (now created Earl of 

* By these laws the colonies were forbidden to sell their products 
•except in England, nor could they buy European goods in any other 
■country. No foreign ships were allowed to enter American ports. 
The Americans were not permitted to make iron-ware and woolen 
goods, and many articles which they made could not be sent from 
one colony to another. 



360 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Chatham) spoke to the same purpose. "I rejoice that. 
America has resisted. Three millions of people, so dead 
to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to 
be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make 
slaves of the rest. ... It is my opinion that the Stamp 
Act should be repealed, totally, absolutely, and immedi- 
ately." The Stamp Act was repealed (1766) but coupled 
with the bill for repeal was another declaring the power 
of Parliament "to bind the colonies in all cases whatso- 
ever." This did not promise harmony, yet as the im- 
mediate point was gained, the colonies were quieted, and 
the usual accompaniment of bonfires and bell-ringing 
testified to the joy of the American people. 

While the discussion over the Stamp Act was still 
going on, the king was attacked by an illness, the nature 
of which was kept secret, but which is now supposed to 
have been temporary insanity. On his recovery a Coun- 
cil of Regency was appointed, at his suggestion, in case 
of a relapse; and Grenville, having displeased him in 
some personal matters, was allowed to retire, his place 
being taken by Lord Rockingham. 

In agreement with its declaration, Parliament now 
(1767) proceeded to lay taxes on tea, glass, paper, and 
painter's colors, more for the sake of asserting its rights 
than with an expectation of revenue. The duties on the 
last three articles were soon withdrawn, but the king in- 
sisted on retaining that on tea. 

By an arrangement with the East-India Company, its 
merchants were enabled to send cargoes of tea to Amer- 
ica, which, even after the duty was paid, could be sold 
at a lower rate than formerly. This, it was supposed, 
would be eagerly accepted by the Americans, it being 



INDIA. DEATH OF GEORGE II. 361 

assumed that they complained of the tax only because it 
affected their pockets. But the colonists desired, not 
cheaper tea, but the maintenance of the principle that 
there could be no taxation without representation; and 
the concession went for nothing. 

In the midst of the excitement produced in England 
by the discussion of these subjects, a series of letters 
under the signature of "Junius" appeared in the news- 
papers, attacking the government, with violent personal 
abuse of its members, in which even the king was not 
spared. Every effort was used to discover the writer 
of these letters; but the authorship of "Junius" contin- 
ued a mystery for several generations. It is only within 
the present half- century that evidence has come to light 
which makes it almost certain that the author of the 
" Letters of Junius" was Sir Philip Francis, a government 
official of some distinction. 




CHAPTER XL VI. 

WAR WITH AMERICA. PEACE OF VERSAILLES. WARREN 

HASTINGS. 

HE tea-ships arrived duly in America, according 
to the provisions of the English government 
and the East- India Company; but no tea was 
sold here. In Boston, where the governor refused to 
allow it to be taken back to England, a company* of 

*This orderly riot is called in history "The Boston Tea-Party. '* 
It curiously happened that the last survivor of it, David Kennison, 
was a soldier at Fort Dearborn (Chicago) in 1810. He died in 
Chicago, February 24, 1852, at a great age, and his bones lie in 
a grave, unmarked but not unknown, within the present limits of 
Lincoln Park. — "Fergus' Historical Series," No. 16. 



362 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

men disguised as Indians boarded the ships, broke open 
the chests, and emptied the tea into the water (1773). 
In New York and Philadelphia, the vessels were sent 
back without unloading their cargoes. In Annapolis, a 
ship that had paid the duty was burnt in the harbor, 
with its cargo. In Charleston, the tea was intention- 
ally stored in damp cellars, where it was soon spoiled. 
As Boston was considered the hot-bed of the rebellious 
spirit, Parliament as a punishment passed the "Boston 
Port Bill," which closed the harbor to all commerce, and 
removed the seat of Massachusetts government to Salem 
(1774). An attempt was made to quarter several regi- 
ments of British soldiers on the inhabitants of Boston, 
and vexatious alterations were made in the charter of 
the colony, all tending to restrict its liberty. A congress 
•of delegates from the thirteen colonies met later in the 
year, and a Declaration of Rights was announced in 
reference to which Lord Chatham (William Pitt) said, 
"I must declare that for solidity of reasoning, force of 
sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under such a com- 
plication of difficult circumstances, no nation or body 
of men can stand in preference to the General Congress 
at Philadelphia." But George III. was incapable of 
learning anything. He had but one idea as to America, 
and that was, to crush down opposition by force. "The 
die is cast," he wrote to Lord North, the premier, when 
he sent General Gage with troops to Boston, "The 
colonies must either triumph or submit." The first 
alternative was clearly meant to be ironical. 

The skirmish at Lexington, the seizure of Ticonderoga, 
the battle of Bunker Hill, the appointment of George 
Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental 



AMERICAN WAR. WARREN HASTINGS. 363 

Congress, followed one another rapidly (1775), an d early 
in the next year, General Washington's bold and mas- 
terly movements forced General Howe to evacuate Bos- 
ton. On the fourth of July, 1776, the Continental 
Congress, assembled at Philadelphia, declared that the 
colonies were and of right ought to be, free and inde- 
pendent states. The Americans had continued to peti- 
tion the king for redress of their grievances even after 
the effort seemed hopeless; but no notice was taken of 
their petitions, on the ground that the Congress was a 
self-constituted body, and in rebellion. Washington was 
defeated by General Howe (who had under his com- 
mand a large number of Hessian troops hired by the 
British government) at Brooklyn Heights (August, 1776), 
and soon afterward was obliged to abandon New York 
City. Franklin and others had been sent as envoys to 
ask aid from France; and though Louis XVI. was not 
then prepared to go to war with England (which would 
have been the result of open assistance), he helped the 
Americans secretly with money, and connived at Lafay- 
ette's going to America on his own responsibility. The 
L>attles of Brandy wine and Germantown, unfavorable to 
the Americans, were more than counterbalanced by 
the victories over Lord Burgoyne at Saratoga (1777), 
-where the British general was taken prisoner, with his 
whole army.* This was the turning-point in the war, 
and is reckoned as one of the "Fifteen Decisive Bat- 
tles of the World." The next year (1778), the indepen- 

* One of Burgoyne's soldiers, John Whistler, entered the Amer- 
ican service, rose to be a captain, and was the builder of the first 
Fort Dearborn (1803). His grand-daughter, Gwinthlean Whistler, 
-widow of Robert A. Kinzie, now lives in Chicago (1891). 



364 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

dence of the United States was recognized by France, 
and after three years more of intermittent fighting the 
American victory at Yorktown, where Lord Cornwallis 
surrendered with his army, practically closed the war. 

Matters did not arrive at this pass without attempts 
on the side of Great Eritain toward peace. Lord North 
brought in two bills (1778), one renouncing formally the 
right of the British Parliament to tax America ; the other 
authorizing the king to send commissioners to treat with 
any person or persons whom the colonies might appoint, 
as a means of restoring peace. The effect of the read- 
ing in Parliament is thus recorded in the "Annual Reg- 
ister:" "A dull, melancholy silence for some time suc- 
ceeded to this speech * * * Astonishment, 
dejection, and fear overclouded the whole assembly." 
Lord Chatham, very ill with the gout, was brought to 
the Parliament House, wrapped in flannels, and sup- 
ported on either side by his son and his son-in-law, 
and there made his last speech. He protested against 
any measure that looked toward the surrender of the 
colonies. His voice had always been against taxation ; 
it was now raised still more strongly against separation. 
While attempting to speak further, he fell back in con- 
vulsions, and was carried home insensible. He lingered 
a few weeks, and died, lamented by all except the king 
and his party, the tories. When George III. heard that 
the Commons had voted him a public funeral,'" he wrote 
to Lord North that he was "rather surprised," but trusted 
that it would be merely an expression of gratitude for 

* Parliament also decreed a monument in Westminster Abbey, 
an annuity of ,£4000, to his heirs, and a gift of ^"20,000 to pay his 
debts 



AMERICAN WAR. WARREN HASTINGS. 365 

certain services which he specified. "This compliment, 
if paid to his general conduct," remarked his majesty, 
"is rather an offensive measure to me personally." The 
funeral honors were paid, and Chatham's name still 
rouses in the hearts of Americans as well as English- 
men, feelings of pride and veneration, while the best 
they can say of George III. is, "Poor man, he meant 
well!" 

England had declared war against France as soon as 
the treaty of the latter country with the United States 
was made known, and it was not long before she was 
embroiled with Spain and Holland. Everywhere her 
powerful navy enabled her to hold her own. Gibraltar 
sustained successfully a three years' siege, and Admiral 
Rodney defeated a Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent 
and a French one in the West Indies. A small Amer- 
ican squadron under John Paul Jones captured two 
British vessels, the "Serapis" and the "Scarborough," 
off the coast of Scotland. 

The year 1780 was long remembered in England on 
account of the "No popery!" riots in London. Ex- 
tremely severe laws against Roman Catholics had been 
in force all through the century. Priests who performed 
mass or became teachers were liable to be imprisoned 
for life; and all Catholics were declared incapable of 
owning landed property, which, in case of inheritance, 
was given to the nearest Protestant relative. The re- 
peal (1778) of these disgraceful laws enraged the bigoted 
masses, and Lord George Gordon, a weak, vain, and 
restless young man, drew together a great mob, which 
for a few days seemed to have possession of London. 
The rioters broke open Newgate Prison, liberated three 



366 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

hundred prisoners, and burned the costly building to the 
ground. They then rushed through London and the 
suburbs, destroying houses and Roman Catholic church- 
es, and burned the fine residence of Lord Mansfield, 
chief -justice of England, with the valuable law- library 
which he had spent fifty years in collecting. Lord George 
Gordon was accused of high treason, but was acquitted, 
and afterward died insane. A large number of the rioters 
were executed.* 

Although the capture of Lord Cornwallis and his army 
at Yorktown in 1781 had virtually ended the American, 
war, the final treaty of peace was not signed until two 
years afterward. Approaches were made to Dr. Franklin 
at Paris, on the part of the British government, and as- 
he refused to treat on any other terms than a recognition 
of American independence, the negotiations were some- 
what delayed. In November, 1782, however, a prelimi- 
nary treaty was signed, yielding all that was demanded 
by the United States, including permission to fish on the 
banks of Newfoundland. Early in the next year, peace 
was made at Versailles with France and Spain, several of 
the West India Islands changing hands again, and Florida 
being once more given back to Spain. On September 
3, 1783, the definite treaty was signed with the United- 
States. The king's first speech in Parliament after the 
signing of the treaty was in a manly and generous tone- 
After stating the facts, he said that he had sacrificed 
every consideration of his own to the wishes and opin- 
ions of his people, and added, "I make it my humble 
and earnest prayer to Almighty God that Great Britain 

* A spirited account of these riots is found in the opening chapter 
of Dickens's "Barnaby Rudge." 



AMERICAN WAR. WARREN HASTINGS. 367 

may not feel the evils that might result from so great a. 
dismemberment of the empire, and that America may be 
free from those calamities which have formerly proved in 
the mother country how essential monarchy is to the 
enjoyment of constitutional liberty. Religion, language, 
interest, affections, may, and I hope will, yet prove a 
bond of permanent union between the two countries."" 
Two years later, when John Adams, our first minister to- 
England, was presented to him, he said that though he 
had been the last to consent to a separation, he would 
be the first to meet the friendship of the United States 
as an independent power. 

In the same year with the acknowledgment of Ameri- 
can independence, the Prince of Wales became of age. 
By his extravagance of living, his losses at the gaming^ 
table, and the alterations he was making in Carlton 
House, which had been given him as a residence, he was 
so deeply involved that at one time he had a sheriff's 
process for debt in his house. His father refused to- 
assist him, and for a time he reduced his expenses. Then, 
the opposition drawing attention to his notorious debts 
and threatening to make them public, the king con- 
sented, on condition of his reforming, to allow him (from 
the public funds of course) ^10,000 a year additional 
income, ^161,000 to pay his debts with, and ^20,000- 
to spend on Carlton House. 

We must now turn to British affairs in India. Lord. 
Clive had returned there after a few years spent at home, 
and had employed his great talents in reforming abuses 
and in consolidating the splendid empire which he may 
almost be said to have given to England. Returning 
home (1767) in ill-health, with enormous wealth, he was. 



368 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

accused by General Burgoyne (the same who was after- 
ward defeated at Saratoga) of misconduct in India, 
and an investigation was held (1773). Acts of oppres- 
sion and deceit toward native chiefs were proved against 
him (he was always faithful to his own government) and 
he was censured for these, while at the same time his 
"great and meritorious services to his country" were 
recognized. The mortification broke his heart Being 
of a melancholy temperament, which was increased by a 
life of inaction, and suffering from illness, he killed him- 
self (1774) at forty-nine years of age. 

After dive's last return from the' Indian peninsula, the 
old corruption and mismanagement began there again, 
and Warren Hastings was sent out as governor-general 
of India, being the first person who bore that title. He 
was an able and vigorous ruler, surrounded by difficulties 
which taxed his powers to the utmost. Hyder Ali, king 
of Mysore, the most enterprising of the native chiefs, 
invaded the Carnatic (a district on the eastern coast of 
India) with 90,000 men, led by French officers, and after 
inflicting great injury on the English, was defeated by Sir 
Eyre Coote at Porto Novo, with the effect of establishing 
their power more firmly than ever. 

To satisfy the grasping demands of the East- India 
Company, Hastings practised such extortions on the 
native princes as have left an indelible stain on his mem- 
ory. Exorbitant fines, seizure of vast amounts of property 
under false pretences, employment of torture to force 
the giving up of treasures, bribery of officials, all these 
things dim the glory of the man who had done more than 
any other to secure the great empire which had been 
conquered by his predecessors, and to this day remains 



AMERICAN WAR. WARREN HASTINGS. 369 



a monument of English prowess. His genius for admin- 
istration, his foresight, his knowledge of the springs to 
be touched in dealing with men, place him in the very 
front rank of England's great colonial governors. But 
when he returned home (1785), expecting rewards and 
applause, he was met by an impeachment which, from 
the magnitude of the interests involved and the station 
of the accused, led to one of the most famous state trials 
of history. 

Once more the grand old hall of William Rufus was 
crowded. The greatest orators of the day were arrayed 
against the prisoner; Burke, Fox, Sheridan, all famed for 
impassioned eloquence, for convincing reasoning, did 
their utmost to prove him guilty. On his side, the coun- 
sel were men of great legal ability, but of lesser note. 
One of them, Law, was afterward chief- justice of Eng- 
land. The court was crowded during its first sessions 
with the rank and fashion of England, both men and 
women, all eagerly taking one side or the other as if their 
own fate depended upon the result. The trial lasted for 
seven years. There were long recesses of the court, 
during which Hastings was released on bail; but not 
until 1795, was the verdict given — not guilty! 

That Warren Hastings was guilty of great crimes 
against humanity can not be denied. That he derived 
no benefit personally from those crimes is equally true, 
for he did not come home a rich man; whether his great 
services to the country justified his acquittal for wrongs 
done was the question for the court to decide, and it 
was decided in the affirmative. 

Though justice was not done, as it now seems to us, 
the objects of the trial were accomplished. It has 
24 



370 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

become impossible, since that day, for any English officer 
to repeat the cruelties which fill our souls with horror; 
and the poor Hindoo pariah is, in theory at least, as 
much under the protection of law as his fellow -subjects- 
in England. 




CHAPTER XL VI I. 

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. NAPOLEON IN EGYPT. 

IRELAND. 

N 1783, the office of prime minister of England 
was conferred upon William Pitt, a man only 
twenty-four years old, second son of the great 
Lord Chatham. When he began, the country was ex- 
hausted by a long war, and public discontent was freely 
vented in abuse of the administration. Within a few 
years all this was changed. The debt was reduced by 
ten millions sterling, and people trusted the govern- 
ment, for it was perceived that there was a strong hand 
at the helm. As long as he held the office, Pitt enjoyed 
the confidence of the king without sacrificing his own 
independence. 

The year 1789 was a crisis in the history of two 
nations with whom the fortunes of England were closely 
connected. The United States of America, which had 
been up to that time a loosely-joined confederacy, with 
no central bond to hold the members together, became 
really united by the adoption of its constitution and 
the organization of a centralized government. It was 
no longer " one nation to-day and thirteen to-morrow, " 



FRENCH REVOLUTION. IRELAND. 371 

as Washington had described it. It was a consolidated 
country, which for the first time commanded the respect 
of the world. England marked her sense of the change 
by sending a resident minister to represent her interests 
in America, which before she had disdained to do. 
From the 30th of April, 1789, the day of Washington's 
inauguration as president, the United States took its 
place among the family of nations.* 

Five days after this event, the meeting of the States- 
general at Versailles, near Paris (May 5, 1789), marked 
the opening of that great convulsion called the French 
Revolution.t At first, English sympathy was largely on 
the side of the Revolutionists. People saw, or thought 
they saw, an effort toward a constitutional government, 
which was to replace the old arbitrary tyranny; and 
they rejoiced for the sake of humanity. But it was not 
long before they began to see the cloven foot of the 
worst form of tyranny — the tyranny of the many — under 
the sweeping robe of progress, and those who had been 
most eager in praise of the movement turned with loath- 
ing from its excesses. The first effect in England was 
to make more marked the division of party lines, and 
friends were separated who had before stood in close 
alliance. Burke and Fox, in particular, became political 
opponents, the latter, a man less clear-sighted and well- 
balanced than his friend, supporting the revolutionists, 

* As England refused to give up certain forts which she held in 
our western territory and continued to interfere with our commerce, 
it was found necessary to make another treaty with her (1794), 
which was negotiated by John Jay, afterward chief-justice of the 
United States. By this treaty everything was settled for ten years. 

t See "A Short History of France," chapters XXIX-XXXII. 



372 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

those "architects of ruin/' as Burke called them. In 
the violent language of the time, those who opposed the 
Revolution were despots — those who defended it were 
Jacobins.* 

The execution of Louis XVI. in 1793 filled England 
with horror; and when the French National Conven- 
tion declared war against her within two weeks after- 
ward, under pretext of helping the party in England 
who wished to make that country a republic, the na- 
tional spirit burst forth like a torrent. A fleet sent to 
assist the royalists in the defence of Toulon (1793) was 
driven away by a force under the direction of Napoleon 
Bonaparte. This was his first military action, and he 
did not again come into direct collision with the Eng- 
lish until they met in Syria (1798). 

A coalition was formed by Great Britain, Holland, 
Russia, and Spain, to restore the monarchy in France; 
but the immense armies, mad with enthusiasm, sent into 
the field by the republic, baffled all their efforts. The 
navy, however, was successful in several quarters, Nel- 
son, Howe, and Hood, keeping up the honor of the 
English flag at sea. 

In Holland, the French were successful, and the Stadt- 
holder (the Prince of Orange) fled to England. The 
authorities left in Holland now joining the French, Eng- 
land seized the Dutch dominions in the East and West 
Indies. Demarara and the colonies in South America, 
the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, and Ceylon, Ma- 

* Be careful to distinguish between "Jacobite" and "Jacobin." 
The former denoted the followers of James II. and his descendants, 
the latter the most violent and radical party of the French anar- 
chists. 



FRENCH REVOLUTION. IRELAND. 373 

lacca and other Dutch possessions in Asia were taken 

(i795)- 

In England, those who sympathized with the Revo- 
lution did their best to stir up ill-feeling among the 
lower classes; and a bad harvest, making high prices, 
increased the excitement. The king was hooted and 
pelted in the streets, and his coach, after he had left it, 
was broken to pieces by the mob. The Bank of Eng- 
land was obliged to suspend specie payments (1797), 
and its notes had to be taken instead of gold and silver. 

It was during this year that Nelson, supported by 
Admiral Jervis, gained a great victory over the Spanish 
fleet off Cape St. Vincent. In the heat of the action he 
exclaimed, "Westminster Abbey or victory!" This time 
it was victory. A few months afterward, Admiral Dun- 
can defeated a French fleet at Camperdown. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, who had reappeared on the 
scene in "The Day of the Sections" (1795) ar >d the 
campaign in Italy (1796-7), now undertook an expedi- 
tion to Egypt (1798) to break the English power in that 
country and prevent communication with India through 
the Red Sea. Landing at Alexandria with an immense 
army, he soon afterward defeated the Mamelukes (Egyp- 
tian soldiers) in the Battle of the Pyramids. Admiral 
Nelson, however, vanquished the French fleet in Abou- 
kir Bay with great loss.* For this he was made "Baron 
Nelson of the Nile." Only four of Napoleon's ships 
were able to escape to France. Meanwhile, Bonaparte, 
marching into Syria, undertook to conquer that country 
from the Turks. At Acre he found the latter supported 

*This was the famous "Battle of the Nile," where took place, 
the incident celebrated in Mrs. Hemans's "Casabianca." 



374 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

by the English admiral, Sir Sydney Smith, and after a 
siege of two months was forced to retire. On returning 
to Egypt from this most disastrous expedition he de- 
serted his army and secretly embarked for France, where, 
by a change in the government, he was made first con- 
sul (1799). 

Sir Ralph Abercrombie, who was sent to Egypt to 
attack the French army left there by Bonaparte, gained 
a victory near Alexandria, but was mortally wounded in 
the action. General Hutchinson, who now assumed the 
command, defeated the French general Menou, and 
agreed that the French troops in Egypt should be trans- 
ported to France at the expense of England. The 
savans (learned men) who went with Napoleon had col- 
lected an enormous quantity of Egyptian manuscripts 
and antiquities of all sorts, including the famous "Rosetta 
Stone,"* which they were now obliged to give up to the 
English, retaining only their private papers. 

A rebellion in Ireland was the natural consequence of 
the revolutionary successes in America and France, and 
an association called "The Society of United Irishmen" 
was formed there in 1793. It was begun by Protestants 
under the leadership of Theobald Wolfe Tone, but was 
soon largely joined by Irish Catholics. For some years 
their movements and intentions were kept secret, but in 
1798 the project of an insurrection was betrayed to the 
English government, and some of the leaders were 
arrested. Martial law was proclaimed in Ireland, and 

* On this stone is engraved an inscription in Greek, ancient 
Egyptian, and hieroglyphics, by means of which it became possible 
to decipher all Egyptian picture-writing. It is in the British 
Museum. 



FRENCH REVOLUTION. IRELAND. 375 



many acts of violence were committed on both sides. 
Lord Edward Fitzgerald was killed in defending himself, 
and Thomas Addis Emmet was confined for three years.* 

By the efforts of Pitt (which included unscrupulous 
bribery of its members) the Irish Parliament passed a 
vote agreeing to union with England (July, 1800). The 
scene, as described by a member of this last Parliament, 
was very impressive. "The speaker, with an eye averted 
from the object which he hated, proclaimed, with a sub- 
dued voice, 'The Ayes have it'" When the House 
adjourned, the speaker was followed to his residence by 
forty-one members, walking bareheaded, and in profound 
silence. He bowed to them before entering his house, 
and then "the whole assemblage dispersed, without utter- 
ing a word." 

Having now reached the last year of the eighteenth 
century, we may properly look back and see what that 
century had accomplished in England. Politically, the 
press had been made free, and the debates in Parliament, 
previously most jealously kept secret, were reported from 
1 77 1. England had gained Canada and lost the thirteen 
colonies; the latter after all a real gain to her, although 
an apparent loss, for independent America has been of 
far more value to her than colonial America ever could 
have been. 



* Emmet was released (1802) on condition of leaving England for- 
ever. A few years later he came to New York, and ended his life 
there as a prosperous lawyer. His brother, Robert Emmet, was 
concerned in a rebellion in 1803, and was hanged in Dublin. Two 
of Thomas Moore's exquisite poems were written in memory of him 
and his lady-love: "Oh, breathe not his name, " and "She is far from 
the land where her young hero sleeps. " 



376 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

She had established an empire in India to which man- 
kind has seen no parallel in modern times, and there 
is no quarter of the globe where her dominion was not 
increased. Captain Cook added to the world's knowl- 
edge by his discovery (1778) of the Hawaiian Islands 
(called by the English Sandwich) and his investigations 
of the resources of Australia led to the establishment of 
a penal settlement in New South Wales (1788). 

In science, the application of steam to practical pur- 
poses had begun, and was constantly widening, James 
Watt extending and applying what Newcomen had 
begun. His partner, Boulton, said triumphantly to Bos- 
well, when the latter visited his manufactory: "I sell here,, 
sir, what all the world desires to have — Power!" Frank- 
lin had tamed the lightning; Herschel, with his powerful 
telescope, brought a new planet into sight. The Duke 
of Bridgewater devised, and, with the help of Brindley r 
the great engineer, carried out the project of connecting- 
the industrial districts by a chain of canals. Wedgwood 
invented a method of making pottery which soon rivalled 
the work of France and Holland. A quarter of the sur- 
face of England, marsh, waste moor, and forest, was re- 
claimed during this century, and ten thousand square 
miles of land added to what was already cultivated. 

It is strange that a nation claiming so high a degree 
of civilization as England, should so long have tolerated 
the unspeakable horrors of the slave-trade ; but though 
the matter was in agitation for twenty years, with all the 
influences that could be brought to bear upon it, the 
detestable traffic was not suppressed until the nineteenth 
century. The bill passed the Commons repeatedly, but 
was always thrown out by the House of Lords. John. 



FRENCH REVOLUTION. IRELAND. 377 

Howard brought the frightful condition of the prisons 
before public attention, though the system of laws which 
punished with death the stealing of articles from a shop 
to the value of five shillings, still continued in force. 

The discovery of a preventive of small-pox, belongs to 
the eighteenth century. This disease had long been the 
scourge of Europe, taking its victims from high and low 
alike, when Lady Mary Wortley Montague, the spirited 
wife of the ambassador to Turkey, brought home with 
her from that country the practice of inoculation. While 
the unreasoning prejudice against it was still great in 
England, Queen Caroline had the good sense to allow 
two of her children to be inoculated; and the remedy 
became a recognized one. In the latter part of the cen- 
tury, however, the discovery by Dr. Jenner of the process 
of vaccination provided a milder treatment, equally effec- 
tual, and infinitely less dangerous. 

In art, William Hogarth, a painter who satirized the 
faults and follies of common life, was most noted in the 
middle part of the century. Later, Reynolds and Gains- 
borough were celebrated, each in his own line, as painters, 
and sculpture was represented by Flaxman. Sheridan 
was the great play -writer, and Garrick the great actor ot 
plays in those days. 

When we try to name the men of letters of the last 
half of the eighteenth century, we have a long task before 
us. There were Hume and Gibbon and Robertson, the 
historians; Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, the origi- 
nators of our system of modern romance-writing; Thom- 
son, Young, and Gray, the poets; Johnson and Goldsmith 
(who also wrote in many other styles), the essayists; Adam 
Smith, founder of the science of political economy; Lady 



378 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Mary Wortley Montague and Horace Walpole, the inim- 
itable letter-writers; Frances Burney, novelist and diarist; 
Watts and Wesley and Newton, the writers of so many 
of our familiar hymns. Last on the list come the two 
poets of humanity, Robert Burns in Scotland and Wil- 
liam Cowper in England, the latter dying in 1800, and 
so finishing the century. 



CHAPTER XL VI II. 

UNION WITH IRELAND. TRAFALGAR. ORDERS IN COUN- 
CIL. PENINSULAR WAR. WAR OF l8l2. 
WATERLOO. ST. HELENA. 




HE opening year of the new century saw the 
assembling of the first Parliament of Great 
Britain and Ireland (1801). At the same time 
the vain words "King of France" were dropped from 
the royal title and the fleur de lys blotted out from the 
royal arms. The Irish Parliament ceased to exist; a 
hundred Irish members were added to the House of 
Commons in England and thirty -two peers, including 
four bishops, to the House of Lords. Pitt made a 
strong effort to procure the admission of Roman Cath- 
olics to Parliament, but the king opposed it from con- 
scientious motives, and Pitt resigned the premiership, 
which he had held for eighteen years. Mr. Addington 
took his place and formed a new ministry (1801). 

The right of searching the vessels of other nations 
for contraband goods had never been given up by 
Great Britain, and the northern countries, Russia, Swe- 



UNION WITH IREIAND. WATERLOO. 379 

den, Denmark, and Prussia formed a league to protect 
their commerce from the encroachments of the English. 
Sir Hyde Parker and Lord Nelson were sent to Copen- 
hagen with a fleet, and a deadly fight took place. Nel- 
son said afterward, "I have been in more than a hundred 
engagements, but that of Copenhagen was the most ter- 
rific of them all." Several of the ships ran aground, and 
the admiral, Sir Hyde Parker, gave the signal to with- 
draw; but Nelson put his spy-glass to his blind eye so 
that he could not see it, and went on fighting. The 
Danish fleet was destroyed, and he sailed away for the 
Baltic to find the Russians. When he arrived off Cron- 
•stadt he learned that the emperor, "Mad Paul." had 
been assassinated; and as Alexander I., his successor, 
was disposed to make peace, there was no difficulty in 
putting an end to the league. Soon afterward a treaty 
was made with France at Amiens, and for a moment the 
world seemed quiet again. 

The peace did not last long. The English refused to 
give up Malta, as stipulated in the treaty, because the 
French army was kept up; and Bonaparte, who was 
still First Consul, ordered all English residents or travel- 
lers in France to be thrown into prison (1803). A 
French army took possession of Hanover, while the 
English seized the French and Dutch colonies in the 
West Indies. A great number of soldiers, called the 
"Army of England," were assembled at Boulogne, and 
Bonaparte reviewed them there; but as he had other 
work on hand, and the British fleet swept the channel 
unremittingly, the army of England never sailed. 

In 1804, Bonaparte proclaimed himself emperor un- 
der the name of Napoleon I. At the same time, 



380 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Addington resigned, and Pitt again became prime min- 
ister. A year later, Nelson fought the battle of Trafalgar 
(1805). The order for the day was, "England expects- 
every man to do his duty." Every man did his duty,, 
and the English won a glorious victory; but Nelson was 
killed. Admiral Coilingwood, the second in command, 
succeeded him. 

In 1806, England lost another of her greatest men. 
AVilham Pitt died in January, on the twenty-fifth anni- 
versary of the day on which he first entered Parliament,, 
worn out at the age of forty-six by care and anxiety. 
The usurpations of Napoleon filled him with dismay and 
dread. "Fold up the map of Europe for twenty years!"' 
he exclaimed in despair, after the battle of Austerlitz. 
His rival, Fox, survived him only a few months. They 
are buried near one another in Westminster Abbey. *■ 
Nelson is buried in the centre of the crypt under the 
great dome of St. Paul's, London. 

It is impossible, in writing the history of any country 
in Europe during the first fifteen years of this century,, 
to avoid constant references to the name of Napoleon.. 
Having beaten Austria and Russia at Austerlitz and 
Prussia at Jena, he entered Berlin in Triumph, and from 
that place issued the "Berlin Decrees," which have- 
made his visit there so famous. By them he declared 
the British Islands in a state of blockade (on paper)^ 
and forbade all other countries to hold any commercial 
intercourse with England or her colonies. The English 
government, fearful that Napoleon would press into his- 
service the fine Danish fleet, sent to demand of Den- 

* "Drop upon Fox's grave a tear 

'Twill trickle to his rival's bier. " — Sir Walter Scott. 



UNION WITH IREIAND. WATERLOO. 381 

mark that it should be given up to them. This being 
indignantly refused, a force was sent to bombard Copen- 
hagen, which was forced to surrender, and the whole 
Danish fleet was carried to England, with immense 
quantities of naval stores and artillery (1807). This 
arrogant act must always remain a blot on the escutch- 
eon of England. The island of Heligoland* was seized 
at this time, and several of the Danish West- India 
Islands were captured. 

A more honorable action was the abolition of the 
African slave-trade, which took place in 1807 through 
the long and continued efforts of Wilberforce, Clarkson, 
and Granville Sharp. 

Napoleon's Berlin Decrees brought on the Peninsular 
War, in which Sir Arthur Wellesley (afterward Duke of 
Wellington) made himself a splendid name. It was not 
the first time he had been heard of, for the battle of 
Assaye, in India (1803), where Wellesley defeated 30,- 
000 natives with less than one-sixth of their number, 
had already shown his generalship. Napoleon's troops, 
under General Junot, had invaded Portugal, because that 
country refused to submit to the Berlin Decrees. Wel- 
lesley gained the battle of Vimeira (1808), but by the 
"Convention of Cintra," between England and France, 
he was obliged to leave the country. Sir John Moore 
was killed in the battle of Corunna;t his soldiers 
defeated the enemy, but were glad afterward to escape 
to England. Wellesley defeated the French at Talavera 
(after which he was made Viscount Wellington), Busaco, 

*This island has recently (1890) been given to Prussia. 
+ The poem beginning, "Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral 
note, " was written to commemorate this event. 



382 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Albuera, Salamanca, and Vittoria (1809--1813), and hav- 
ing driven them across the Pyrenees into their own 
country, pursued them as far as Toulouse. Then he 
returned to England, was created Duke of Wellington, 
and took his seat in the House of Lords. 

The king's old malady, insanity, by which he had sev- 
eral times before been attacked, came upon him hope- 
lessly in 18 10, after the death of his beloved daughter,, 
the Princess Amelia. From this time to his death in 
1820, George III. is a cipher in the history of his country. 
His oldest son, the Prince of Wales, afterward George 
IV., Was appointed regent. 

The second quarrel of the United States with England, 
commonly called the War of 181 2, was preceded by 
several years of ''strained relations" between the two> 
countries. In 1807 Great Britain, in retaliation for 
Napoleon's Berlin Decrees, issued "Orders in, Council," 
forbidding ships of any nation to trade with France, and 
assuming the right to capture any vessels violating this, 
prohibition. The Americans were now between two 
fires. England had long claimed the right of searching; 
their ships and taking from them by force any sailors- 
born on British soil. In pursuance of this claim, the 
English ship Leopard lay in wait for the U. S.' frigate 
Chesapeake, out of Norfolk harbor, and demanded cer- 
tain men stated to be British subjects. The American; 
Commodore Barron refused to give them up, whereupon 
the Leopard opened fire on the Chesapeake, which, 
being unprepared for fighting, was obliged to strike her 
flag and surrender the men. Outrages like this at last 
became so intolerable that war was declared, June, 1812, 
under President Madison's administration. The war was. 



UNION WITH IRELAND. WATERLOO. 3S< 



conducted mostly by sea and on the Great Lakes of Am- 
erica, where ^the United States' navy obtained many 
successes. *By land it was carried on languidly, and 
without great credit to either party. The wanton burn- 
ing of public buildings at Washington (the Capitol, Presi- 
dent's house, etc.), without even the pretence of military 
necessity, seemed more like the action of savages than 
of the representatives of a civilized nation. Both parties 
being tired of the war, peace was made at Ghent (Dec. 
24, 1814) without any mention of the original matter in 
dispute — the claim of a right of search. Nevertheless, 
that claim has not been asserted since then. The battle 
of New Orleans (Jan. 8, 1815) was fought two weeks after 
the treaty was signed, the news of the peace not having 
then reached this country. In this battle the British 
were defeated with the loss of two thousand men, includ- 
ing their general, Pakenham, while the Americans, under 
General Andrew Jackson, lost only a handful. 

The feature of this war which is of greatest interest to 
Northwestern Americans, is the fact that in prosecuting 
it in the West, the British repeated the cruel, unpardon- 
able course which had, in revolutionary times, brought 
disgrace upon their statesmanship and their arms. They 
made allies of the savage Indians, and again the toma- 
hawk, the scalping -knife, and the torch became British 
weapons through their use by their friends the red men. 
One of the very first occurrences of the war was the 
"Chicago Massacre" of August 15, 181 2. News was 
brought to Captain Heald, commandant at old Fort 
Dearborn, that war had been declared, and that he must 
evacuate his fort and withdraw to Fort Wayne with all 
his men, together with settlers and their families. He 



384 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

was told that the Indians would fall upon them merci- 
lessly as soon as they left the protection of the fort; but 
he first tried to engage their services as guards by distrib- 
uting among them a large quantity of goods, and then 
started out. Before they had gone two miles the savages 
attacked them and killed all, men, women, and children, 
except a score or so whom they held, some for torture 
a,nd some for ransom. Next day they burned the fort, 
and Chicago was without inhabitants for four years. 

In 1 8 14, Napoleon, having wearied out humanity with 
his inordinate ambition, accompanied by its frightful 
destruction of human life, was forced by the allies, who 
had been fighting him under different coalitions for many 
years, to abdicate and retire to the island of Elba. To 
their utter astonishment he escaped, and reappeared in 
France the next year at the head of an army. A con- 
gress was sitting in Vienna for the purpose of reestab- 
lishing the boundaries he had deranged, when the news 
was brought to them. The Duke of Wellington, who was 
present, hastened home to impress upon Parliament the 
necessity of proceeding against Napoleon as a common 
enemy. The Parliament responded to his appeal, an 
enormous sum was voted to carry on the war, and a com- 
bination of the principal European powers was formed to 
dethrone the emperor, who had again assumed the scep- 
tre, the Bourbon king, Louis XVIII., fleeing before him. 

Now for the first time the two greatest generals of 
Europe were to be personally opposed to each other. 
Napoleon was confident of success. He is reported to 
have said, "Enfin, je vais me mesurer avec ce Vilainton."* 

*"At last, I am going to match myself with this Wellington." 
{In French "vilain" means "low, bad, villainous." 



UNION WITH IRELAND. WATERLOO. 385 

Each laid his plans with the utmost skill. Wellington 
intended to join the Prussian general, Blucher, and 
attack Paris; Napoleon aimed to meet and defeat them 
separately. He marched toward Brussels, drove Blucher 
from his position at Ligny, and sent Marshal Grouchy 
after him to prevent his union with Wellington. The 
English army made a stand at Waterloo, a place about 
twelve miles from Brussels. Here Napoleon attacked 
them (June 18, 1815), and a long day's struggle ensued, 
both sides fighting with desperate valor. Toward night- 
fall, Napoleon gathered up all his strength for a last 
charge; the "Old Guard," who had been his companions 
on many an eventful field, rushed forward only to meet, 
at the hands of the English, their first defeat. Already 
the detachment of Prussians under Blucher, who had 
out-marched Grouchy, had appeared upon the scene. 
The French columns broke and fled, pursued by the vic- 
torious allies; Napoleon just escaped capture as he drove 
furiously away in his carriage; the battle of Waterloo was 
over; his standard fallen, never to rise again. 

The allies marched at once to Paris, where Louis 
XVIII. was again set upon his throne. The emperor, 
after a vain attempt to escape to America, went volun- 
tarily on board the British ship Bellerophon, saying that 
he wished to throw himself upon the protection and 
hospitality of England. But he was too dangerous an 
enemy of society to be let loose again to destroy the 
peace of Europe; and, the Regent refusing him permis- 
sion to set foot on English ground, the allies decided 
that he should be sent to St. Helena, a lonely, rocky 
island in the Atlantic Ocean west of Africa, there to re- 
main a prisoner in the hands of the British. He lived 
25 



386 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

six years longer, strictly guarded, at St. Helena, and died 
in 182 1, in the fifty-second year of his age. 




CHAPTER XLIX. 

DEATH OF GEORGE III. GEORGE IV. CATHOLIC EMAN- 
CIPATION. WILLIAM IV. 

REAT distress followed the sudden change from 
war to peace. The suspension of trade les- 
sened the demand for labor, and the numbers 
of soldiers and sailors suddenly disbanded increased the 
trouble. Food became so dear as to threaten a famine,, 
and many riots took place in the manufacturing districts, 
where the newly invented machinery for saving hand- 
work threw many persons temporarily out of employ- 
ment. Meetings were called, loudly demanding reforms 
of various kinds, and at one of these, held at Manchester 
(181 9), several persons were killed.* The popular ora- 
tor Henry Hunt, and the political economist William 
Cobbett, boldly advocated the cause of the working- 
man, and were fined and imprisoned in consequence. 

In 181 5, the Algerine pirates (who had been put 
down by our own Decatur in 1805) were again rampant, 
and Great Britain sent an expedition against them which, 
in connection with a small Dutch squadron, destroyed 
the fortifications of Algiers and many of the piratical 
vessels. More than a thousand Christian slaves were 
liberated and nearly that number of men lost by the 
English in the action. 

* This occurrence went by the name of " Peterloo. " 



GEORGE IV. WILLIAM III 387 

King George III. died in 1820, at eighty-two years of 
age, after a reign of sixty years, the longest in English 
history. The last ten years of his life were passed in 
darkness. Blind and deaf, as well as insane, he was a 
sorrowful spectacle, and death came as a welcome relief. 
His faithful and excellent wife, Queen Charlotte, was 
carried to the grave only a few months before him. His 
son, George IV., had long been Prince Regent. The 
little grandchild who was to take possession of his 
throne seventeen years later as Queen Victoria, was 
born the year before his death; her father, the Duke of 
Kent, died a week before the king. 

In his private character, George III. was amiable and 
upright, and by his homely simplicity endeared himself 
to the common people. As both he and Queen Char- 
lotte were economical even to niggardliness, they were 
not popular with the court circle, who would have pre- 
ferred greater hospitality. In his public life the king 
was undoubtedly honest and conscientious, but his narrow 
mind and unconquerable obstinacy were the cause of 
great injury to the nation. His ideas of the kingly pre- 
rogative were almost as absurd as those of the Stuarts, 
but his faults had this advantage : they made it impossi- 
ble for any subsequent English sovereign to repeat his 
mistakes. 

The regency of the fourth George had lasted nine 
years before his father's death (1811-1820), so that no 
change was perceptible in the government when he 
took the name of king. A plot, called the Cato-Street 
Conspiracy, was formed by the radicals to assassinate 
the cabinet ministers, who were disliked as representing 
the aristocracy. It was discovered, and the ringleaders, 



5SS HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



who were led by a person named Thistlewood, were 
executed. 

The beginning of the new king's reign was disgraced 
by a prosecution of his wife, Queen Caroline, whom he 
had married only for her money, and had always dis- 
liked. Accusing her of misconduct, he subjected her 
to the ignominy of a public trial, in which she was de- 
fended by the popular statesman, Lord Brougham/' 1 and 
honorably acquitted. The Commons showed their good- 
will to her by voting her an annuity of ^50,000. Not 
being a person of great delicacy of feeling, she tried to 
force her way into Westminster Abbey as a spectator 
on the occasion of the king's coronation; but her un- 
feeling husband had given orders that she should be 
excluded. The mortification caused by this repulse 
threw her into an illness, of which she died in less than 
three weeks afterward (182 1). Their only child, the 
Princess Charlotte, married to Leopold of Saxe Coburg 
(afterward King of the Belgians), had died some years 
before. 

George IV. was a traveling king. Soon after his 
coronation he visited Ireland, where he was welcomed 
as the first English king who had ever gone there in 
peace. Afterward he went to Hanover, and still later 
made a tour in Scotland. While he was away on this 
latter trip, his prime minister, Lord Castlereagh,t com- 
mitted suicide, and was succeeded in his post by George 
Canning, a distinguished orator and statesman (1822). 

Some outrages committed in India by the government 
of Burmah furnished an excuse for annexing a part of 
the territory belonging to that country (1826). The 

* Pronounced Broom. + Pronounced Castleray. 



GEORGE IV. WILLIAM IV. 3S9 

next year, England entered into the war which Greece 
was carrying on with Turkey. The naval battle of 
Navarino, in which the combined English, French, and 
Russian squadrons destroyed the Turkish fleet, ended 
the war, and made Greece an independent kingdom. 
Prince Otho of Bavaria accepted the crown, which was 
not a coveted one, several princes declining it. Otho 
was deposed after a reign of nearly thirty-five years, and 
Prince George of Denmark, brother of the present 
Princess of Wales, was elected king in his place. Lord 
Byron, the great English poet, who was deeply interested 
in the welfare of Greece, spent the last months of his 
life there, dying at Missilonghi in the midst of the 
struggle for liberty (1824). 

England was now entering upon an age of reform. 
Though conservative by nature, when the mind of the 
people is firmly set upon doing away with old abuses, 
the removal of these follows, notwithstanding occasional 
drawbacks and disappointments. Mr. Huskisson, pres- 
ident of the Board of Trade, was active in promoting a 
spirit of commercial liberality tending toward free-trade, 
which gradually developed into that system which has 
made England so prosperous. Taxation was reduced; 
England had never seemed so thriving; but the excite- 
ment produced by this state of things led to over-specu- 
lation, and a panic ensued which reduced the country 
nearly to the verge of bankruptcy (1825). Many of the 
banks stopped payment, and the government was barely 
able to save its own credit. A great number of busi- 
ness failures followed; and it was long before a feeling 
of security was restored. 

Of all English laws, those for the punishment of crime 



390 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

were the most opposed to common sense and to Chris- 
tianity. Nearly three hundred offences, ranging from 
pocket-picking up to high-treason, were punishable with 
death; and this frightful severity, instead of suppressing 
crime, seemed only to increase it. By the unflagging 
exertions of Sir Samuel Romilly, these laws were very 
much mitigated; and since then they have been gradu- 
ally modified, until at the present day the death -penalty 
is inflicted only in cases of wilful murder or high-treason. 

The time was now ripe for the repeal of the Corpora- 
tion and Test Acts, which had been on the statute-book 
since the reign of Charles II. This measure, passed in 
1828, was the forerunner of a more important one, 
the Catholic Relief Bill, which restored to Roman 
Catholics those rights of which they had been deprived 
since 1673. 

This was brought about largely by the efforts of Daniel 
O'Connell, a famous Irish orator and agitator, who, being 
elected to the House of Commons as member from Clare, 
was refused admittance to it on account of his religion. 
After the passage of the bill, he took his seat in Parlia- 
ment and continued to represent his country there for 
many years. 

The Catholic Emancipation Bill, as it is commonly 
called, was the last one of importance passed during the 
reign of George IV., who died in 1830, at the age of 
sixty-eight, after a reign of ten years. Of the character 
of this monarch there is little to be said, except that it 
was contemptible. He was a man of good abilities, but 
selfish, cold-hearted, and utterly without principle. His 
private life was a scandal to the nation, and he had no 
public virtues. Fortunately the time was past when the 



GEORGE IV. WILLIAM IV. 391 

individual character of the ruler could do harm, except 
in the way of example. 

A few months after the death of George IV., the first 
steam railway for the conveyance of passengers was 
opened in England. Five years before, the bill of the 
Liverpool and Manchester Railway had been passed, 
against violent opposition, the objection being that with 
the best engine that could be found, the rate of progress 
was but little more than three miles an hour. When 
•some of the committee expressed an opinion that it 
might be possible to attain a speed of fifteen, or even 
twenty miles an hour, the statement was called a gross 
•exaggeration, and the remark was made, that even if this 
rate of speed could be attained, the danger of bursting 
boilers would be so great that people would as soon 
allow themselves to be fired off from a rocket as to trust 
their lives to such a machine. The genius of George 
Stephenson, a self- trained engineer, was soon employed 
in proving to the world that the so-called visions were 
sober facts. Other inventors were at work to lessen 
human toil and increase human comfort. Arkwright, 
Hargreaves, and Crompton made improvements in ma- 
chinery; Sir Humphrey Davy invented the safety-lamp 
for miners' use, and MacAdam taught the English how 
to make good roads. Gas had been introduced, not 
only into the streets but into the houses, though with 
great opposition from the whale-fishing interest. It was 
thought a very garish and unbecoming light for domestic 
use, although its value in preventing crime in the streets 
was considered beyond question. 

If we look at the list of writers in the first thirty years 
of the century, their number astonishes us, their bril- 



392 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

liancy dazzles us. When we have written the names of 
Walter Scott, poet, novelist, essayist, historian; Byron, 
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Campbell, Moore,* 
and many others, poets; Lamb, Hunt, Landor, De Quin- 
cey, Wilson, Sidney Smith, and Jeffrey, essayists and 
reviewers, and feel that the list is only begun, we stop 
short, discouraged. The literary history of the time is in 
itself so full of interest that it will well repay careful and 
extended study. As a help toward this, read Mrs. Oli- 
phanfs "Literary History of England," which treats of 
this period. 

George IV. left no descendants. His next brother,, 
the Duke of York, died three years before him ; and the 
third of George III.'s sons, the Duke of Clarence, suc- 
ceeded him as William IV. He had been bred to the 
navy, and is called the "Sailor-King." 



CHAPTER L. 

PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 
VICTORIA. 

OR a long time the question of Parliamentary 
reform had been agitating the king, the Par- 
liament, and the people. The boroughs — 
election districts we should call them here — were repre- 
sented just as they had been hundreds of years before, no- 
notice having been taken of the fact that some had 
grown more populous and others less so in the mean 
time. There were actually some districts in which not 

* Pronounced More. 




ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. VICTORIA. 393 

one voter lived, where the rich men who owned the land 
sent such persons to Parliament as they chose; while 
several large cities which had become great manufactur- 
ing centres were without a representative of their own. 
Added to this, voting was restricted to people who 
owned property, or paid large rents, thus leaving an im- 
mense number of citizens without the right of suffrage. 
The Duke of Wellington, who was William's premier as 
he had been George's, was the determined enemy of 
reform, and found himself so unpopular that he resigned 
his office (1830). Lord Grey, an advocate of the pro- 
posed change, succeeded him. 

The Reform Bill found its most bitter enemies among 
the nobility. It was passed more than once by the 
Commons, and as often thrown out by the House of 
Lords, who considered it a direct attack on the aristoc- 
racy. Even in the House of Commons, the bill, when 
first read by Lord John Russell, was received with shouts 
of laughter. Sidney Smith's* famous illustrations^ of 
"Mrs. Partington" was made in a speech on this occa- 

* After ridiculing the idea that the House of Lords could prevent 
a reform in Parliament, he said: "I do not mean to be disrespect- 
ful, but the attempt of the Lords to stop the progress of reform 
reminds me very forcibly of the great storm of Sidmouth and the 
conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. A great 
flood had set in at the time; the tide rose to an incredible height; 
the waves rushed in upon the houses, and everything was threatened 
with destruction. In the midst of it all, Dame Partington was seen 
at the door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, 
squeezing out the sea- water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlan- 
tic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington's spirit was 
up; but I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The 
Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop 
or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest. " 



394 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

sion. It seemed impossible to believe that any English- 
man could seriously vote for curtailing the privileges of 
the upper classes. 

Whatever was the determination of the aristocracy, the 
people were equally resolute. During the time when the 
measure was in suspense, riots broke out in many places, 
public buildings were destroyed, lives were lost, and 
confusion and apprehension prevailed everywhere. The 
populace shouted madly, "The bill, the whole bill and 
nothing but the bill ! ;; Frightful disturbances in Ireland 
accompanied the agitation of this question. Tax-col- 
lectors were murdered, property burned, and so many 
excesses committed that it was found necessary, for a 
time, to place some districts under martial law (1832). 
After years of struggle, the long-contested bill was passed, 
the king giving a hearty consent to it, June, 1832. 

The three main provisions of this act (which has been 
called the greatest revolution experienced by England 
since that which placed William and Mary on the throne, 
1689), were : 1. The withdrawal of the right of sending 
members to Parliament from small districts, commonly 
called "rotten boroughs;" 2. The bestowal of the same 
right on cities and districts with two thousand inhabi- 
tants and upward; 3. The giving the franchise in towns 
to all persons occupying houses worth in rent ^10 
a year, and in the country to persons owning land worth 
^ioa year, or who paid a yearly rent of at least ^50. 
With these concessions the nation was perfectly satis- 
fied, and it was not until 1867-68 that laws were passed 
further extending the franchise. Now it embraces not 
only householders paying rent, but also lodgers. 

In the midst of the excitement attending the passage 



ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. VICTORIA. 395 

of the Reform Bill, the Asiatic cholera broke out for 
the first time in England (183 1). Terrible as was this 
visitation at the time, it proved a blessing in the end, 
•calling public attention to those sanitary precautions 
which before had been strangely neglected, and causing 
improvement among the body of the people in habits 
of cleanliness and comfort. 

The year 1833 witnessed one of the great moral tri- 
umphs of the century — the passage of the law for 
abolishing slavery in the British colonies. William 
Wilberforce, who had been since 1789 spending his life 
in trying to bring about this object, lived just long 
■enough to see the bill become a certainty, dying before 
it went into operation, which took place Aug. i, 1834. 
The sum of ^20,000,000 was awarded to the planters 
as payment for the loss of their "property." Nearly 
three-quarters of a million of human beings were set 
free by this measure. 

In the following year (1834), Lord Grey, the premier, 
under whose administration the reform bills had been 
carried through, resigned, and was succeeded for a short 
time by Sir Robert Peel, who soon gave place to Lord 
Melbourne. The latter remained in office, except for a 
short interruption, until after the accession of Queen 
Victoria. At the same time, the tory party assumed the 
name of "Conservatives." At a later day, the whigs 
took the name of "Liberals," and the old appellations 
have almost dropped out of use. 

King William IV. died June 20, 1837, after a reign 
of almost exactly seven years. He was a man of many 
good qualities, among which sincerity, fairness of mind, 
a strong sense of justice, and great zeal and industry in 



396 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the public service were conspicuous. From the obsti- 
nacy of his father, King George III., he seems to have 
been quite free; and his use (or misuse) of the royal 
prerogative was so slight compared with that of his 
father and elder brother, that he approached the ideal 
of a constitutional king. The full realization of this 
ideal, however, was reserved for the next reign. 

Besides the statesmen who have already been men- 
tioned, there were in this period Sir Robert Peel, after- 
ward renowned for his opposition to the corn-laws; 
Lord Brougham, noted for his brilliant and versatile 
talent, and for his efforts in the cause of reform ; and 
Lord Palmerston, the advocate of Catholic emancipa- 
tion, afterward prime minister. Mr. Gladstone first took 
his seat in Parliament in 1832 (as a Conservative), at 
twenty-three years of age. 

Alexandrina Victoria, daughter of George III.'s fourth 
son, the Duke of Kent, became queen on the death of 
her uncle, William IV., when she was just eighteen 
years of age. It had long been known that she would 
occupy that position, and she had been most carefully 
trained by her mother for its duties. Her manners were 
simple and girlish, though dignified, and she had a 
strong sense of duty and of the responsibilities of her 
office. Her way of glancing at Lord Melbourne, the 
premier, for instructions, when she presided at the first 
meeting of the privy council, is said to have been pecu- 
liarly modest and graceful. As the crown of Hanover 
could descend only to a male, the sovereigns of England 
ceased to have any connection with that country at the 
death of William IV., and that kingdom passed to his 
next oldest surviving brother, the Duke of Cumberland. 



ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. VICTORIA. 397 

An interesting incident in the annals of this period is 
the election of Mr. Moses Montefiore, a Jew, to be 
sheriff of London. The queen knighted him, and we 
have read within a few years of his celebrating his one 
hundredth birthday, and of his death not long afterward. 
It is pleasant to know that the honors at which he ar- 
rived were due, not to his great wealth, but to his noble 
and life-long charities. 

The first political event in her majesty's reign was a 
rebellion in Canada, in which some adventurers from 
the United States took part, but which was soon put 
down. Upper and Lower Canada were afterward joined 
in one (1840), and both were at length merged in the 
"Dominion of Canada," which united the British pos- 
sessions from the Atlantic to the Pacific under one gov- 
ernment (1867). There were not wanting statesmen at 
the time of the first revolt who advised letting Canada 
go. They thought the time had come when a peaceful 
separation would be for the interest of both parties; 
but they were overruled, and our northern neighbor still 
lives under the British flag. 

As China refused to allow the carrying of opium (a 
source of profit to English merchants) into her territory, 
a war with that country was the consequence (1839), 
which ended in the storming and taking by British troops 
of several Chinese cities, including the capital, Pekin. 
The empire was forced to pay ^21,000,000 for the ex- 
penses of the war, to open five ports to English com- 
merce, and to give up the island and city of Hong Kong 
forever to the English. Of the morality of this triumph 
it is scarcely necessary to express an opinion. 

In 1839 occurred the first great "Chartist'' demon- 



398 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

stration. A huge petition, signed by more than a mil- 
lion of people, was rolled into Parliament like a hogs- 
head. The petitioners demanded universal suffrage,, 
annual Parliaments, vote by ballot, abolition of any 
property qualification for members of Parliament, and 
the payment of these members, who get nothing in return 
for their time and labor, except the honor of serving their 
country. None of these things were granted at the time, 
the subject having been too recently set at rest by the 
Reform Bill to make it worth while to reopen it; and 
finding that they could accomplish nothing, the Chartists 
gradually calmed down. 

In 1840 Queen Victoria married her cousin, Prince 
Albert of Saxe Coburg Gotha — a man whose sterling 
qualities of mind and heart quickly endeared him to the 
English people. He was indeed a model prince. Enlight- 
ened, large-minded, conscientious, and highly accom- 
plished, his influence was always exerted on the side of 
right, while his private character was without reproach. 

Almost simultaneous with this happy marriage was 
the introduction into England of the system of penny- 
postage, brought about by the persistent efforts of Sir 
Rowland Hill (1840). At the same time originated the 
practice of affixing stamps for prepaying postage, which 
has now become universal in the civilized world. 

The English, having interfered in the domestic affairs 
of Afghanistan, were expelled from the city of Cabul, of 
which they had taken possession, by an insurrection of 
the natives (1841), and almost the entire army of 17,000 
men perished from cold and hunger and the attacks of 
their enemies in the dreadful retreat across the moun- 
tains into India. The next year Lord Ellenborough, the- 



ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. VICTORIA. 399- 

governor-general of India, destroyed the fortifications of 
Cabul, and then abandoned the country to the natives. 
A war in India followed; Sir Charles Napier conquered 
Scinde (Sind) 1843, an< ^ tne Punjaub, a great country in 
northern India, was annexed, after fierce fighting, to the 
British dominions. This gave the English the control 
of the entire peninsula of Hindostan. 

It was by the interposition of the English government 
in the affairs of Egypt that that country was made prac- 
tically independent of Turkey (1841). Mehemet Ali, 
who had taken possession of Syria (also a province of 
Turkey), was obliged to withdraw his forces and to con- 
fine himself to Egypt, the latter being yielded to him 
as a virtually independent monarch, with the title of 
"Hereditary Viceroy." 




CHAPTER LI. 

BOUNDARY TREATIES. CORN -LAWS REPEALED. 
CRIMEAN WAR. 

HE Treaty of Ghent (18 15) following the war 
of 181 2, had left unsettled the northwestern 
boundary of the United States, the territory 
on the Pacific coast seeming at that time too unimport- 
ant to be worthy of mention. For many years, a joint 
occupation of the tract now comprising our states of 
Oregon and Washington and the territory of British 
Columbia, had been agreed upon; but by 1846, immi- 
grants were pouring in so rapidly to the great country 
watered by the Columbia, that a treaty was made, fixing 



400 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the boundary at 49 of latitude, which divided very fairly 
the land in question. The " Webster -Ashburton" treaty 
had settled the long -disputed question of the north- 
eastern boundary of our country four years before (1842). 
Of all the unpopular laws ever passed in England, few 
have caused such bitterness of feeling as the Corn -law 
of 1815, which forbade the importation of foreign wheat* 
until the price at home reached 80 shillings a quarter — 
almost starvation point. This measure, intended to 
benefit the land -owner at the expense of the consumer, 
was, like other laws enacted in favor of the privileged 
classes, upheld by the whole force of the wealthy land- 
holding interest; and its repeal was bitterly denounced 
as an attack upon the rights of property. A strong 
Free -Trade party had been for a long time growing in 
England, and an "Anti- Corn -Law League" had been 
formed in 1839. Sir Robert Peel, who had at first been 
in favor of protective legislation, now gave his whole 
support to the movement for repeal. Richard Cobden 
and John Bright were on the same side, urging the abro- 
gation, not only of the Corn-Laws, but of all others that 
conflicted with the principles of free-trade, including the 
old navigation laws, which were still in force. After 
frantic opposition the bill for repeal was passed (1846). 
Sir Robert Peel, who had been prime-minister since 
1 84 1, resigned his office in the same year in which the 
Repeal was carried to its triumphant conclusion. The 
ostensible cause of trouble was his failure to carry a bill 
for putting down disturbances in Ireland; but the real 
difficulty was the anger felt by the Conservatives at his 
change of policy in respect to free -trade. Lord John 

* In England "corn" is the general name for all grain. 



BOUNDARY TREATIES. CRIMEAN WAR. 401 



Rus sll became premier, and Mr. Disraeli (afterward 
Leo Beaconsfield) first came into notice as a leader of 
th' Protectionists. There were some indications of Sir 
R bert Peel's returning to power, when he was killed by 
a all from his horse (1850). 

In 1848 (called the "year of revolutions," from the 
upheaval of many of the ancient tyrannical governments 
of the continent), a new demonstration of the Chartists 
took place. They demanded the same changes that had 
been asked for in 1839, and had made preparations for 
enforcing their demands by arms; but the Duke of Wel- 
lington took such efficient precautions against a breach 
of the peace that the agitation was quieted without the 
loss of a life. 

The first "World's Fair," or exhibition of the industry, 
products, and art of all nations, was held in Hyde Park, 
London, in 185 1. Prince Albert conceived the grand 
idea of thus bringing together the nations of the world 
on common ground, and the example has been followed 
by other countries. The exposition to be held in Chicago 
in 1893 is the latest of the many which have sprung from 
this precedent. 

The attempted encroachments of Russia on Turkish 
territory induced England and France (the latter being 
then under the rule of Napoleon III.) to combine against 
the Czar in what is known as the Crimean War (1854-6). 
After an unsuccessful attempt to attack the Russian 
fortress of Cronstadt, in the Baltic, the English fleet 
under Sir Charles Napier, joined the French one under 
Marshal St. Arnaud, and both proceeded to blockade 
the harbor of Sebastopol, in the Crimea. A combined 
force of English and French landed on the coast, and, 
26 



402 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

after defeating the Russians at the crossing of the river 
Alma, attacked the strongly fortified town of Sebastopol. 
The Russians made desperate efforts to raise the siege, 
in the course of which the battles of Balaklava and Inker- 
mann were fought. At the former of these occurred the 
mistake commemorated in Tennyson's "Charge of the 
Light Brigade." The sufferings of the English army dur- 
ing the ensuing winter were terrible; partly on account: 
of the loss, in a terrible storm, of many vessels loaded 
with supplies, but still more because of the wretched- 
arrangements prevailing in the English army for the dis- 
tribution to the troops of the necessaries of life. Men 
perished in the camps and hospitals by thousands. The 
country was a sea of mud under the terrible storms of 
a Crimean winter. Horses fought each other for the 
few and scanty rations that were served out to them, 
the cavalrymen and artillerymen each trying to fight 
off the animals of the other from devouring their 
miserable supply. At one time, the entire transport 
corps had dwindled to less than a dozen living beasts, 
while the carcasses of the dead lay unburied by hundreds 
about them. The French suffered immensely, though 
not so much as the English, because their military 
system had been more perfectly maintained during the 
preceding years. Cholera broke out in both armies, 
and more deaths resulted from it than from all other 
causes put together. Of the 24,000 English soldiers 
who died during the progress of the war, scarcely one- 
sixth died in battle or from wounds received. 

After Parliament became aware of the state of things 
in the Crimea, a vote of censure was passed against the 
ministry, and Lord Palmerston was called to office in. 



BOUNDARY TREATIES. CRIMEAN WAR. 403 

place of Lord Aberdeen, the former premier, who had 
succeeded Lord John Russell a few years before. 

When the sickness caused by hardship and exposure 
was at its height, Miss Florence Nightingale, an English 
lady who had made hospital -work the subject of many 
years of study, went to the Crimea, taking with her a 
supply of nurses and of things which sick men need, and 
the whole aspect of things began to improve. She went 
among the sick and wounded like an angel of light, and 
from that time forth, an English writer has said, there 
was at least one department of the business of war 
which was never again a subject of complaint. Long- 
fellow's "Santa Filomena" was suggested by Miss Night- 
ingale and her work : 

" Lo ! in that house of misery 
A lady with a lamp I see 

Pass through the glimmering gloom, 
And flit from room to room. " 

Meantime, the siege of Sebastapol went slowly on. 
Lord Raglan, a survivor of the Peninsular War and the 
battle of Waterloo, and who had been at the head of 
the army since its first arrival, died in 1855. The first 
French commander, Marshal St. Arnaud, had died the year 
before, and been succeeded first by General Canrobert, 
and later by General Pelissier. Lord Raglan's successor, 
General Simpson, remained through the war. The Rus- 
sian emperor, Nicholas, also died in 1855, an d his 
son, Alexander II., carried on the war until September 
of the same year, when, the allied armies having de- 
stroyed one after another the magnificent fortifications 
of the town, the place was evacuated by the Russians, 
who did their best to make it another Moscow. In 



404 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the peace of Paris which followed (1856), Russia* gave 
up all claim to the provinces on the Danube which she 
had tried to seize from Turkey; vessels of war of all na- 
tions were excluded from the Black Sea, except a few 
under each flag to serve as a sort of armed naval police; 
and the Christian subjects of Turkey were declared to 
be under the protection of all the contracting powers. 

A terrible mutiny in India (1857) next engaged the 
attention of England. The Enfield rifle, for which it 
was necessary to use greased cartridges, had been intro- 
duced into the army, and the Sepoys (native troops), 
whose religion forbids their using certain kinds of meat, 
revolted, because they were forced to bite off the ends 
of the greased cartridges. At Delhi, Cawnpore, and 
Lucknow, insurrections took place, accompanied by 
frightful cruelties on the part of the natives. The re- 
bellion was crushed only after a two years' struggle, 
Sir Henry Havelock, Sir Colin Campbell (afterward 
Lord Clyde), and Lord Lawrence being among the 
many distinguished officers who succeeded in bringing 
it to a conclusion. The atrocities which the natives (par- 
ticularly those of a company led by a wretch called 
Nana Sahib) inflicted on all English, especially women, 
are such as to defy description. The English, taking 
advantage of the fact that is a part of the Hindoo belief 
that the body must be kept intact in order that the soul 

*" It is not Sebastapol which we have left to them, " said Prince 
Gortschakoff, the Russian general, " but the burning ruins of the 
town which we ourselves set fire to, having maintained the honor 
of the defence in such a manner that our great-grandchildren may 
recall with pride the remembrance of it, and send it on to all pos- 
terity. " 



BOUNDARY TREATIES. CRIMEAN WAR. 405 

may enjoy immortality, inflicted a punishment which 
was supposed to have a peculiarly terrifying effect on 
the minds of the natives. Such as had been convicted 
of any personal share in the outrages were bound to the 
muzzles of loaded cannon, and blown to pieces and 
scattered to the winds by the discharge. 

The Sepoy rebellion having shown the incapacity of 
the East- India Company to manage the affairs of a 
mighty nation, the company was dissolved, and the ad- 
ministration of its affairs transferred to the crown (1858). 
A royal viceroy took the place of the governor general; 
and a new office, that of Secretary of Indian affairs, was 
created, the holder of which has a seat in her majesty's 
cabinet. At a later time, Queen Victoria was formally 
proclaimed Empress of India (1877). 

In 1 86 1 Prince Albert died, a loss not only to his 
own family but to the nation. It was the year of the 
breaking out of our Civil War, and the prince, with his 
right feeling and good judgment, had thrown his influ- 
ence altogether on the side of preserving kindly relations. 
The English government had, with what seemed un- 
warrantable haste, recognized the Confederate govern- 
ment as a belligerent,* without even waiting until our 
minister, Mr. Charles Francis Adams, could have time 
to arrive in England and represent the matter. This 
action, under the circumstances, created much ill-feeling 
in this country, which was increased when, at a later 
time, Great Britain allowed the Confederacy to build 
and equip steamers in her harbors for the purpose of 
destroying our commerce. On the other hand, an Amer- 
ican naval officer, Capt. Wilkes, took by force from the 

*A power entitled to make war on another. 



406 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

British steamer Trent, two ambassadors from the Con- 
federate states, sent to England and France respectively. 
This unjustifiable action caused great excitement in Eng- 
land, but on the demand of Great Britain, the ambas- 
sadors were given up. "Right of Search" was no more. 

After the close of the War for the Union, the 
United States demanded reparation for injuries in- 
flicted on our commerce by the Alabama and other 
Confederate cruisers built and equipped in England. 
Commissioners from both countries met at Washington 
(187 1 ) and signed a treaty by which it was agreed to 
refer the matter to five arbitrators, to be appointed 
respectively by England, the United States, Italy, Brazil, 
and the Swiss Confederation. These met at Geneva, in 
Switzerland (1872) and decided that the British govern- 
ment should pay to the United States the sum of $15,- 
500,000, to be given to its citizens for losses incurred by 
the depredations on the high seas of the English Confed- 
erate cruisers. 

A disputed question as to the ownership of the island 
of San Juan, in the straits between Vancouver Island 
and our Territory of Washington, was referred to the 
Emperor of Germany, William I. He decided that the 
American claim to the island was a just one, and the last 
question of boundaries between the United States and 
the Dominion of Canada was settled by the evacuation 
of the island by Great Britain, November, 1873. 

After the death of Lord Palmerston in 1865, the leading 
men in the British government were Earl Russell (form- 
erly Lord John Russell) and Mr. Gladstone, liberals; and 
Mr. Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield) conservative. 



TREATY OF BERLIN. EGYPT. JUBILEE. 407 




CHAPTER LI I. 

TREATY OF BERLIN. EGYPT. THE QUEEN'S JUBILEE. 

HAT is called "The Eastern Question,"— that 
is, the standing quarrel between Russia and 
Turkey — was not finally settled by that Treaty 
of Paris which closed the German war. Twenty years 
later the Eastern countries were again fighting each 
other, and as British interests were involved in the war, 
Lord Beaconsfield, the prime-minister of England, acted 
as arbitrator between the contestants. The negotiations 
were closed by the Treaty of Berlin (1878) and the island 
of Cyprus was placed under English rule and occupation 
as a security for the fulfilment by Turkey of her part of 
the treaty. This transaction reflected great honor on 
the Earl of Beaconsfield, who continued to be prime 
minister until the defeat of his party caused him to retire, 
whereupon Mr. Gladstone formed a new ministry (1881). 
During the last twenty years England has been gradu- 
ally acquiring more and more control in Africa. In 1875 
the government purchased from the Khedive (the ruler 
of Egypt) all his shares of the Suez Canal stock, in order 
to secure control of that route to India. In spite of the 
relief afforded by this payment, the Egyptian govern- 
ment became so deeply indebted to foreign nations as 
to bring about an interference in its affairs by several 
^European countries, which resulted in a sort of joint 
protectorate over it. This state of things produced great 
discontent in Egypt, and an insurrection broke out in the 
army, headed by an officer named Arabi. The Khedive 



408 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

being unable to restore order, the rebels gradually grew 
bolder, and in 1882 attacked the European population 
of Alexandria, massacring several hundred of them, and 
Arabi took possession of the fortifications. Admiral 
Seymour, commander of a British fleet in the harbor, 
bombarded the stronghold, and Arabi and his troops 
fled. Sir Garnet Wolseley was now sent to Egypt with a 
force of 25,000 men, and fought the battle of Tel el 
Kebir with Arabi, in which the latter was defeated and 
made prisoner. He was tried for rebellion and sentenced 
to death, but the penalty was commuted to banishment 

The next year another rebellion against the Khedive 
called for the intervention of England. An adventurer 
calling himself the Mahdi, or redeemer of the Moham- 
medans, had excited the people of the Soudan (an im- 
mense district including the Upper Nile, subject to 
Egypt), to rise against the Egyptian government. The 
British military occupation of the country had been con- 
tinued, and General Hicks, an English officer leading 
Egyptian troops, was sent against the Mahdi, but was 
defeated and slain, together with his whole army (1883). 

Great Britain, having determined to abandon the Sou- 
dan and treat with the Mahdi, sent General Charles 
Gordon, an officer who had distinguished himself in the 
Crimea and in China, to settle the terms and withdraw 
the British troops from the country. In 1884, he went. 
to Khartoum, in Nubia, where he proposed and pro- 
claimed terms which the Mahdists treated with contempt. 
Not being provided by the home government with a. 
sufficient military force to return across the desert, he was- 
besieged by the Mahdi in that place, and, before the force 
sent to his rescue by Lord Wolseley could reach him, he 



TREATY OF BERLIN. EGYPT JUBILEE. 409 

was assassinated. The British operations in the Soudan 
proved a failure. The lives of many officers and men 
were sacrificed, and the whole army retired in 1885, 
though British occupation of Egypt went on. 

Africa has been the scene of various other interventions 
on the part of England. In 1868 the king of Abyssinia 
in Eastern Africa ill-treated some English residents in 
that country, upon which Sir Robert Napier stormed 
and took his capital, Magdala, and the king killed him- 
self. In a war in Western Africa with the Ashantees 
(1872), their town of Coomassie was burned by an army 
under Sir Garnet Wolseley. In 1877 a war with the 
Boers of the Transvaal Republic, in South Africa, ended 
in the defeat of the British, who abandoned the country. 
In 1879 a British force in Zululand (South Africa) was 
attacked and almost destroyed by the savages. In re- 
turn Sir Garnet Wolseley burned their towns, defeated 
and captured their king, Cetewayo, and forced a speedy 
peace. The son of Napoleon III. (the Prince Imperial) 
who had accompanied the English army as a volunteer, 
was killed in a skirmish with the natives. 

At the same time with these operations in Africa, a 
war brought on by English jealousy of Russia was going 
on in Afghanistan. The Ameer (ruler of the natives) 
refused to receive an English embassy, though he had 
already admitted one from Russia. The English there- 
upon invaded the country and forced it to accept a 
British resident minister at Cabul, the capital. The resi- 
dent and his suite having been murdered, General Rob- 
erts entered the city with his forces and inflicted severe 
punishment on the Afghans. After much fighting the 
latter were subdued, and matters were arranged to the 



410 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



satisfaction of the English, who then withdrew from the 
-country (1881). 

Of the great British possessions of Australia and the 
neighboring islands, nothing has yet been said. By right 
of discovery and early exploration, they belonged to the 
Dutch, and until the beginning of the present century 
Australia was called New Holland. The Dutch, however, 
did not follow up their discoveries by making settlements, 
and it was reserved for English enterprise to transform 
the wastes of the great islands into populous countries. 
Captain Cook visited them several times from 1769 to 
1777, and did much toward drawing attention to their 
capacities for development. Other explorers followed 
him, and about twenty years after his first visit a penal 
settlement was established at Port Jackson, in New South 
Wales (1782). The exportation of criminals from Eng- 
land practically ceased in 1839, although many still 
Temained who were serving life -sentences, or sentences 
for a term of years. In 185 1 the discovery of gold in 
Australia by a miner from California, caused a rush to 
that continent, of adventurers, many of whom became 
permanent settlers. The gold-fever abated after a while, 
having run its usual course; but the prosperity born of 
enterprise and industry is ever increasing. Enthusiasts 
look forward to some day in the far future when the 
empire of the world shall be transplanted from the North 
Atlantic to these regions, its exact antipodes. 

In 1880 the Liberal party were again in the ascend- 
ant. Lord Beaconsfield, conservative, who had been in 
power since 1874, resigned, and Mr. Gladstone became 
prime minister for the second time. The great struggle 
in Ireland against the alleged oppression of tenants by 



TREATY OF BERLIN. EGYPT JUBILEE. 411 

landlords was then going on; and an Irish Land -Bill 
was passed, which, though making great concessions, 
failed to give satisfaction to the malcontents. The 
leader of the agitators, Mr. Parnell, was president of a 
"Land League" for the promotion of the interests of 
tenants, which league also demanded "home-rule" (the 
reestablishment of the Irish Parliament); a question 
not yet settled (1891). 

The disestablishment of the Irish Church (which re- 
lieves the Catholic Irish from the support of the Church 
-of England in Ireland), went into effect Jan. 1, 187 1. 

The reforms demanded by the Chartists first in 1839 
and again in 1848, long continued a subject of discus- 
sion in Parliament. After many years of altercation, 
certain changes were made by the efforts of Mr. Disraeli 
(1867), which for the present have laid the vexed ques- 
tion to rest. The property qualification for members of 
Parliament has been abolished; Jews have been admit- 
ted into that body (1859); voting by closed ballot in- 
stead of by the old method (a show of hands) has been 
adopted, and a great extension has been made of the 
class possessing the franchise (right to vote). 

The great subject of education has, within the last 
quarter of a century, engaged the attention of Parlia- 
ment. Something approaching our common-school sys- 
tem has been established, and many societies have been 
founded for promoting the enlightenment of the com- 
mon people. 

In literature, no period has been of such varied rich- 
ness as the nineteenth century. The authors of the first 
third of that time have already been noticed. Since 
then we have, among poets, Tennyson and the Brown- 



412 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



ings; among novelists, Dickens, Thackeray, and George 
Eliot; among historians, Macaulay, Grote, Hallam, and 
Dr. Arnold; among essayists, Matthew Arnold, Carlyle y 
and Ruskin; among men of science, Darwin, Huxley, 
and Herbert Spencer. This list may serve as a mere 
suggestion of the vast number of writers who have con- 
tributed to each of the branches indicated, as well as to 
other departments of literature which have flourished 
during this brilliant and fruitful period. 

In 1887, Queen Victoria celebrated her jubilee — the 
completion of a reign of fifty years. She has now (1891) 
occupied the throne for a longer time than any other 
sovereign in English history except Henry III. and 
George III., and can look back with pleasure over a 
reign marred by fewer faults than that of any of her 
predecessors. 



Such are the outlines of the story of Great Britain:; 
its beginning, its advance, its development into splendid 
maturity. No place, no age, no race, whether past or 
present, can compare in interest with that island, its 
twenty centuries, its sturdy people. If not the birth- 
place of human freedom, it was its nursery, school,, 
battlefield, and forum, and is its home. If not the foun- 
tain of letters, it has been the channel wherein their 
course has found freest and strongest flow. The tree- 
of the knowledge of good and evil has grown and flour- 
ished in Anglo-Saxon soil, and its fruit is a system of 
morality and piety, not perfect, but more near to per- 
fection than the fruitage of any other growth, ecclesi- 
astical or political, in all the world. 



TREATY OF BERLIN. EGYPT JUBILEE. 413 

Through much tribulation has England come to glory. 
There were epochs of awful blackness, frightful oppres- 
sion, heart-breaking cruelty; but by setting the points of 
survey far enough apart, a steady progress must be per- 
ceived. Things often seemed to be going to ruin, but 
whenever they got to the extreme of hopelessness, hope 
dawned — a thunderstorm, an earthquake, a cataclysm 
burst forth — and the light slowly or suddenly returned. 

The firmness of fibre in the race is directly traceable 
to the fearful struggles by which its freedom and its 
advancement have been gained. America is essentially 
the child and heir of England; we enter into the inheri- 
tance of her riches of knowledge and power. Every- 
thing she has gained we enjoy. Our peril is to be found 
in the fact that we come to the rich legacy almost as a 
free gift, not having for so many centuries worked for it, 
fought for it, died for it, as did our forefathers in the 
older country. If we keep clear of the peril, it will be 
because with the gift we also inherit the industry, truth, 
courage, firmness, virtue, and patriotism, which history 
associates indissolubly with the name of Englishman. 



414 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



LIST OF SOVEREIGNS. 



SAXON KINGS: 

Egbert, 827— 836 

Ethelwolf, 836— 858 

Ethelbold, * - ■ - 858— 860 

Ethelbert, 860— 866 

Ethei.red, 866— 872 

Alfred, 872- 901 

Edward (the Elder), - - - - - - 9°i— 925 

Athelstan, 9 2 5— 94i 

Edmund (the Magnificent), ----- 94*— 94& 

Edred, "• 946— 955 

Edwy, - 955— 959 

Edgar (the Peaceable), - - ' - - - 959— 975 

Edward (the Martyr), - - - - - ■. - 975 — 978 

Ethelred II. (the Unready), - - - - 978—1016 

Edmund II. (Ironside), - 1016— 1016 

DANISH KINGS: 

Sweyn, - 1013— 1013, 

Canute (the Great), 1016— 1035 

Harold (Harefoot), 1035— 1040 

Hardicanute, 1040— 1042 

SAXON KINGS (RESTORED) : 

Edward (the Confessor), - - - - - 1042—1066- 

Harold II. (Godwin), 1066— 1066. 

NORMAN KINGS: 

William I. (the Conqueror), - 1066— 1087 

William II. (Rufus), 1087— 1 100. 

Henry I. (Beauclerc), 1100— 11 35 

Stephen (of Blois), "35— "54- 



LIST OF SOVEREIGNS. 



415 



PLANTAGENET KINGS: 



Henry II., 

Richard I. (Cceur de Lion), 

John (Lackland), 

Henry III. (of Winchester), 

Edward I. (Longshanks), - 

Edward II. (of Cairnarvon), 

Edward III., 

Richard II. (of Bordeaux), - 

Henry IV., 

Henry V., 

Henry VI., 



< 5 °2 



^ & « 

3 H * 






Edward IV., 
Edward V., 
Richard III., 



George II., 
George III., 
George IV., 
William IV. 
Victoria, - 



"54— 
1189— 
1199— 
1216 — 
1272 — 
1307— 
1327— 
1377— 
1399— 

1413— 
1423— 

1461 — 
1483- 
1483- 



TUDOR KINGS: 

Henry VII., - - - ' - - - - 1485— 

Henry VIII., 1509 — 

Edward VI., 1547 — 

Mary, - - - - 1553 — 

Elizabeth, 1558 — 

STUART KINGS: " 

James I., 1603 — 

Charles I., 1625 — 

(Commonwealth), 1648 — 

Charles II., 1660 — 

James II., 1685 — 

William III., ) 1689— 

Mary II., ) 1689— 

Anne, 1702 — 

BRUNSWICK KINGS: 

George I., 1714 — 



1727— 
1760 — 
1820 — 
1830— 
1837- 



189 
199 
216 
272 
307 
327 
377 
399- 
413 
423 
461 

483 
483 
485 

5°9' 
547 
553 
558 
603 

625 
648 
66o- 
685 
688 
702 
694 
724. 

727 
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